Lot 226: [ GERMAN MEDALS ]

HANS SCHWARZ (c. 1492 - after 1521) Marquard von Hattstein (c. 1488-1522), Canon of Mainz Cathedral from 1519, uniface bronze medal, c. 1520, MARQVARD DE HATTSTEYN ECLE MOG CAN, bust left wearing brimmed hat and coat with fur collar, 46mm (Habich -), two solder marks on the reverse, an extremely fine contemporary cast, apparently unique

Provenance: Spink's, 24th January 2008, lot 157. This seemingly unique medal by Hans Schwarz, who is credited with introducing portrait medals as a new and popular art-form into Germany at the time of the Augsburg Diet in 1518, has only recently been identified ('A Previously Unknown Portrait Medal by Hans Schwarz', The Medal, 53, Autumn 2008, pp. 32-33). Marquard von Hattstein, named on the medal as canon of Mainz, a position he attained on 3 November 1519, was a compatriot of Erasmus and had links with both the German and English Reformations. He enrolled at the university of Erfurt in 1502 and was promised a position at the chapter of Mainz in 1509. on Hattstein studied in Paris from 1511 to 1514, spent one year in Mainz as was required by the chapter and then continued his studies in Italy, in Rome and Bologna. He returned to Mainz and was made a canon of the cathedral chapter as well as a canon of St. Alban's in the same city. He died on 13 June 1522. In 1520 he wrote a letter in support of Erasmus to the English churchman John Colet, Dean of St. Paul's cathedral, against certain theological comments made by Edward Lee, Archbishop of York (in this he was unaware of Colet's premature death on 10th September 1519 from the 'sweating disease'). Erasmus himself recorded that when passing through Mainz on his way to Basel Marquard von Hattstein had offered to send armed men to protect him on his journey. When Erasmus declined, Hattstein nevertheless sent him his own personal servant. Subsequently Erasmus was to write about Hattstein: 'I made ready to leave, and was offered some of his household, armed, to go with me by that excellent young man Marquard on Hattstein, a canon of Mainz cathedral, who has recently died, though in every way he richly deserved a long life' (see Mynors, R.A.B., et al, 'The Correspondence of Erasmus', Toronto, 1974, p. 372). The medal itself is cast from a carved wooden model of the portrait. Schwarz developed a technique whereby the inscription, rather than being part of the model, was punched into the mould prior to the casting process leaving in this case remarkable sharpness in detail to both the portrait and the lettering. The leaf motif behind the bust can be found on other medals by Schwarz, especially on medals made in 1520 and it seems almost to have acted as a sort of signature at that time.