Enlargement of the Polish Army and erection of the statue of John III Sobieski

The King of Prussia Frederick William II (1786-1797) commissioned the Prussian king to produce this medal, which celebrates the triumph of King Jan III Sobieski (1674-1696) over the Turks and at the same time commemorates the resolution of the Four-Year Sejm to increase the army of the Republic to one hundred thousand soldiers (28 October 1788). He entrusted the work to Berlin medallists. In July 1789, the Prussian deputy Giorolamo Lucchesini presented the gold medal to King Stanisław August Poniatowski (1764-1795), and the silver ones to Stanisław Małachowski and Prince Casimir Nestor Sapieha. This was part of the diplomatic strategy of Prussia, which did not want to allow any rapprochement between the Republic and Russia, fearing a further strengthening of the latter country. Prussia's support for the reforms carried out in Poland did not last long, however, and ended with the change of the international situation at the beginning of the 1890s.

The obverse of the medal depicts the statue of Jan III Sobieski, unveiled in Łazienki on 14 September 1788, by Franciszek Pinck to the design of André Le Brun, the leading sculptor at the court of King Stanislaus. It depicts the Polish king on horseback, in Roman costume, toppling a Turkish soldier surrounded by captured Turkish weapons and two shields with inscriptions – Latin on the left, translating to: ‘To John III, King of Poland, Grand Duke of Lithuania, Defender of the Fatherland and Allies, year 1686 [!] us delivered’, in Polish on the right: ‘To Jan III K[rólowi] P[olskie] W[ielkiem] X[ięciu] L[itewskie] Oyczyzny y Sociuszow Obroncy Któregośmy Postradali 1696’. The Latin phrase ‘PRISCA VIRTUTE FELIX’ (Happy through past bravery) and the two-line inscription below it ‘CONCORD[ia] COMIT[iorum] CONVOC[atorum] MDCCLXXXVIII’ (Consent of the Sejm convened 1788) already allude to the content on the reverse of the medal. On it we see a personification of Polonia with a crown on her head, holding a sword in her outstretched right hand and a shield with the coat of arms of the Republic in her left hand. The scene is complemented by the Latin motto above – ‘PROPRIO MARTE TUA’ (Safe with one's own weapon) and the inscription at the bottom commemorating the resolution of the Great Sejm to increase the number of soldiers to one hundred thousand – ‘AUCTO EXERCITU MDCCLXXXIX’ (For the multiplication of the army, 1789).

Tomasz Markiewicz