Jan Regemann

Jan Ludwik Regemann was educated at the universities of Strasbourg and Leiden, where he studied with the famous Dutch physician Herman Boerhavve. On the recommendation of the university authorities, around 1737 Regemann became a personal physician of August Aleksander Czartoryski, with whose court he spent the rest of his life. His skills brought him fame abroad. He won the undying gratitude of King Stanisław August Poniatowski by treating the monarch's head wound inflicted with a club by the Bar Confederates during his abduction on 3 November 1771. According to the custom of honouring people of merit for the country, the monarch ordered a medal to be prepared in the doctor's honour. Probably already in 1772 the stamps were damaged and other stamps of very similar composition but smaller in diameter were created; the medal was struck with them. It is believed that the gold copies of the first and second versions of the work - weighing 45 and 18 ducats (157 and 63 g) - were given to the doctor by the king himself. We know of silver and bronze prints from the period, although the latter were also reproduced later.

The obverse is decorated with the bust of the doctor in the right profile, wearing a wig with a braid (harcap), in a frock-coat, a coat with a halsband and a ruffle, surrounded by the inscription: “IOAN[nes] LUD[ovicus] REGEMANN BOERHAAVII DISCIP[ulus] N[atus] BREMAE MDCCXI”, translated as: “Jan Ludwik Regemann, student of Boerhaave, born in Bremen 1711”. The authorship of the work is indicated by the signature at the bottom: “I[ohann] P[hilip] H[olzhaeusser] F[ecit]”. The reverse side has the following inscription: “VIRO MEDICAE ARTIS STUDIO, FELICI, ABSQUE LUCRI QUAESTU, XXXV. ABHINC ANNIS DE GENTE POLONA CONTINUO BENE MERENTI EXIMIA MORUM PROBITATE INSIGNI, HOC GRATI ANIMI MONUMENTUM, POST CURATUM AB EODEM VULNUS FERRO PARICIDAE D[ie] III. NOVEM[bris]: MDCCLXXI. SIBI ILLATUM, STAN[islaus] AUG[ustus] REX DEDIT”, translated as: “To the man content in his medical sciences, without seeking profit, for 35 years of good service to the Polish nation, distinguished by his extraordinary good manners, this monument to a grateful mind, after he had cured a wound inflicted by a parricide weapon on 3 November 1771, King Stanisław August offered” (transl. after: J. W. Zacher, G. Śnieżko, M. Zawadzki, with the cooperation of M. Męclewska, Medale polskie i z Polską związane z okresu Pierwszej Rzeczypospolitej. Katalog zbiorów, Vol. 2, Warszawa 2019, pp. 197–198).

Tomasz Markiewicz