Conrad Hinrich Donner was a German

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

 banker

Bank

A bank is a financial institution that serves as a financial intermediary. The term "bank" may refer to one of several related types of entities:...

and art collector.

Conrad Hinrich Donner was the son of Johann Christian Donner (1739-1804), a buyer and the Danish

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 consul

Consul (representative)

The political title Consul is used for the official representatives of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, and to facilitate trade and friendship between the peoples of the two countries...

 in Hamburg and Maria Anterrer (1742-1802) from Altona. Donner was at first the owner of a tobacco

Tobacco

Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...

 factory with 150 workers. In 1798 he established the Company Conrad Hinrich Donner for the sale of goods and the provision of marine insurance

Insurance

In law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment. An insurer is a company selling the...

(Assekuranz). Company Conrad Hinrich Donner was also a shipping company from which sailing boats operated. Later the banking transactions stepped ever more into the foreground, with the formation of Conrad Hinrich Donner Bank. He had close business ties to the shipping magnate Johann Cesar VI. Godeffroy

Johann Cesar VI. Godeffroy

Johann Cesar VI. Godeffroy was a German trader and Hanseat.He was the founder of Museum Godeffroy.-Family history and the trading company J.C. Godeffroy & Sohn:...

. In 1820 Donner bought Sieveking Garden

Georg Heinrich Sieveking

Georg Heinrich Sieveking was a German merchant and follower of the Enlightenment. Together with his friend and business partner, Caspar Voght, he led one of the largest trading firms in the Hanseatic League during the second half of the 18th century...

 (today Donners Park :de:Donners Park) and there in 1843 he established an art museum containing sculptures of Bertel Thorvaldsen

Bertel Thorvaldsen

Bertel Thorvaldsen was a Danish-Icelandic sculptor of international fame, who spent most of his life in Italy . Thorvaldsen was born in Copenhagen into a Danish/Icelandic family of humble means, and was accepted to the Royal Academy of Arts when he was eleven years old...

 and Herman Wilhelm Bissen

Herman Wilhelm Bissen

Herman Wilhelm Bissen was a Danish sculptor.Bissen first studied painting in Copenhagen, then became a pupil of the sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen. In 1824, he travelled to Rome and met Christian Daniel Rauch in Berlin. Under the influence of Thorvaldsen, his style changed from romanticism to...

). The museum and an orangery

Orangery

An orangery was a building in the grounds of fashionable residences from the 17th to the 19th centuries and given a classicising architectural form. The orangery was similar to a greenhouse or conservatory...

 was designed by of Gottfried Semper

Gottfried Semper

Gottfried Semper was a German architect, art critic, and professor of architecture, who designed and built the Semper Opera House in Dresden between 1838 and 1841. In 1849 he took part in the May Uprising in Dresden and was put on the government's wanted list. Semper fled first to Zürich and later...

. Conrad Hinrich Donner donated large sums for charitable purposes and was a promoter of art and science.