For the feast of the Order of the White Eagle

Established by King August II the Strong in 1705, the Order of the White Eagle is the highest Polish decoration awarded to persons of particular merit to the Republic of Poland. Its feast was celebrated on 3 August, August's name day, in Saxony or in Poland, depending on the king's place of residence. One of the regular features of these festivities was a shooting tournament, and one of the prizes awarded to the participants were gold and silver medals founded by Augustus III (1733-1763) and awarded in 1738 and 1740-1763. Their authors were the brothers Henryk Fryderyk Wermuth (1702-1744) and Christian Zygmunt Wermuth (1711-1791), who ran the family medal-making workshop founded by their father and were medallists and engravers at the Dresden mint. The medals minted on the occasion of an order festival had a fixed iconographic canon. Their obverse is decorated with the bust of August III, shown in the right profile, wearing a wig, armour and an ermine coat, with the Order of the Golden Fleece and a ribbon, and sometimes the star of the Order of the White Eagle. The figure of the king is described by a Latin inscription that translates to: ‘August III by God's Grace King of Poles’. On the obverse, on a chequered floor, we see a Rococo table on lion's legs with the insignia of the Order of the White Eagle arranged on it. The representation is completed by a Latin inscription, which translated reads: ‘To the King and the Republic of Poland well deserved’. At the bottom, however, was placed the date of the celebration of the holiday. In the case of our copy: MDCCLXII / 3. AUG. – i.e., 3 August 1762.

Looking at these medals, it is not difficult to notice that the details of the depictions described above changed over the years. This was necessitated by a change of author – after the death of Henri Friedrich, in 1744, his brother Christian Sigismund became author – and by the need, after a certain time, to replace the worn stamps with new ones. The differences concern in particular the characteristics of the King's face and his attire, and on the reverse the details of the decoration of the Rococo table.

Due to the occupation of Dresden by Prussian troops, celebrations of the Order of the White Eagle were held in Warsaw from 1756 onwards. In 1762, during a shooting tournament, ten gold and sixty silver medals were distributed.

Tomasz Markiewicz