Lot 245: [ GERMAN MEDALS ]

MATTHES GEBEL (c. 1500-1574) Ottheinrich (1502-59), Count of the Rhenish Palatinate, silver medal, 1532, bearded bust facing three-quarters right, rev., the base of a candelabrum flanked by putti and ornamented with a roundel depicting Pirckheimer's Allegory, 49.12g, 44.9mm (Habich 1072, pl. 127, 5; Stemper 61), a contemporary cast on a thick flan, the fields tooled, the edge with a tiny letter 'A' countermark at three o'clock, in high relief and extremely fine

Provenance: Morton & Eden, 28-29 November 2006, lot 469. This extremely rare medal has a diameter ranging from 44.3 to 44.9mm - slightly larger than the silver examples recorded by Stemper (42-44mm). Its weight at 49.12g also exceeds those recorded by Stemper (36.71-39.90g). The extensive tooling of the fields is not so typical of Gebel's own work and may be by a different, possibly later, hand. No explanation has been found for the tiny letter 'A' stamped into the edge of the medal although it may be the mark of a so far unidentifi d collector. Pirckheimer's Allegory depicts the forging of the Christian heart: Tolerantia reclines, supporting an anvil on her hip, while Invidia holds the heart in a pair of tongs, Spes looks on, raising her left arm, and Tribulatio wields the hammer. The allegory was suggested by Willibald Pirckheimer to Albrecht Dürer and is also known as a print by the Master I.B. of 1529 (Stemper p. 70, fig. 17). The same image appears as the reverse of a medal by Gebel of a member of the Geuder family who was a nephew of Pirckheimer, for which see Habich 1257, pl. 143, 4a.