This small selection of medals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is part of a much wider collection given to the Frick by Stephen K. and Janie Woo Scher.

The vogue for medals can be traced to fifteenth-century Italy, where medals were made in imitation of, and in competition with, antique prototypes. In the years that followed, medals became fashionable all over Europe. The German artist Hans Schwarz is associated with the first wave of medal production in Germany. His medal of the humanist Conrad Peutinger from about 1517–18 is displayed at the top of this case. Like the northern European paintings and sculpture produced in this period, medals made in this region share the general characteristics of lifelikeness and precision. Matthes Gebel became the most prominent and prolific of German medalists of the sixteenth century. His medal of Johann Friedrich I, Elector of Saxony, is shown in this case at left, second from the bottom, and exemplifies the fine detail and naturalism of Gebel’s medallic production.

As production grew, the function of medals continued to diversify. Hans Reinhart, who was active during a volatile period of religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants, produced medals that do not commemorate individuals but promote religious themes. His gilt-silver medal depicting Adam and Eve at the Tree of Knowledge—at center right in this case—was of a type often meant to be sold on the open market. Extremely fine and technically innovative, Reinhart’s medals are a tour de force.

In France, in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the medallic art reached a peak in the work of Guillaume Dupré. At the very bottom of this case is Dupré’s medal depicting Henry IV of France and his wife, Maria de’ Medici, as Mars and Minerva, holding hands. The medal is based on an ancient coin. As the art of the medal diversified and flourished throughout Europe, artists and patrons continued to pay homage to the medal’s ancient prototypes.