An impressive medal from the time of King John Casimir.
The work of the famous Danzig medalist J. Höhn the younger. Minted to commemorate the Peace of Oliva of 1660. The peace treaty concluded between Sweden and the Republic of Poland on May 3, 1660, ending the Swedish Deluge.
A compositionally beautiful medal with very meaningful symbolism. Depicting a panorama of Gdansk, over which the sun is hovering, whose rays are breaking up the cloud cover, and a rainbow rises above the city. Beneath the panorama, in the foreground, we see a field that has yielded grain, although echoes of war are still visible between the ears, in the form of all kinds of weapons of war. The whole is complemented by a sentence in the surround proclaiming:
"After the war the golden peace reaps a lush harvest, from here Gdansk expects the deserved reward of its constancy."
The Peace of Oliwa, as an event ending the years of devastating war, has lived to see many references in Polish medal-making. Today on the antiquarian market one usually encounters medals with a depiction of the Cistercian Abbey on the grounds of which the treaty was signed (whether with Jan Kazimiera on one side or a prayer under a tree).
This one is one of the very rare ones.
This is the first time in our offer.
In the Onebid archive, there are few quotations of the original (the last one from 2010) and one copy (with the note"item practically unobtainable in the original").
Silver, diameter 79.5 mm, weight 102.96 g.
Obverse: panorama of the city, above it the sun in clouds and a rainbow, below it a view of a field. In the section initials JH in ligature. In the rim the legend:
POST BELLUM PLENA SURGIT PAX AUREAMESSE HINC SPERAT MERITAM GEDANI CONSTANTIA FRUGEM.
Reverse: above the city coat of arms an inscription in a dozen lines: PACI/PERPETUÆ POSTA ET ETERNATAS A SAECULO/INTER/POLONIAM SUECIAMQUE/INDUCIAS ET MOX BELLA/AUSPICIIS/DEI TER: OPT: MAX:/INVICTAQUE VIRTUTE/IOANNIS CASIMIRI/PII FELICIS PACIFICI/ANNO MDCLX/DANTISCI ET CIRCA ILLAM/TRACTATÆ/FELICITERQ III MAII CONCLUSÆ/EADEM CIVITAS LÆTA LUBENS/CONSECRAVIT.
