Catherine de Bourbon, Duchess of Bar (1558–1604)

Catherine married Henri, Duke of Bar, later Duke of Lorraine, in 1599. The marriage is said to have been unhappy: by the time her brother, Henri IV of France, finally allowed her to marry, she was in her forties and unable to bear children. The king had also promised the duke that his Calvinist sister would convert to Catholicism, but Catherine, an avid writer of religious poetry, refused. The wedding was annulled a few years before her death. The Princess of Bourbon cultivated a life of the mind, and this medal presents her as a classical figure or a sort of fourth Grace, an embodiment of all the qualities of the three Graces.

Source: Scher, Stephen K., et al. The Scher Collection of Commemorative Medals. New York and London, 2019.