Bolesław I the Brave - royal entourage

Stanisław August Poniatowski was very similar to Sigismund III Vasa in his liking for the art of medal-making. Not only did both rulers admire medals, but they also actively participated in their creation. In the case of Sigismund III Vasa, it sometimes meant making medals with his own hands. Stanisław August Poniatowski limited himself to designing them. Among the medals created during his reign, a special place is occupied by the series called Royal Entourage. It was designed as a gallery of portraits of the rulers preceding Stanisław August Poniatowski on the Polish throne. The obverses depicting busts of individual figures are mostly modelled on Marcello Bacciarelli's paintings that decorated the Marble Room of the Royal Castle in Warsaw, while the reverses have the form of inscriptions characterising subsequent rulers. The content of the inscriptions was the work of the King. The King entrusted the task of making the whole series to his court medallist, Jan Filip Holzhaeusser. It is known that the artist came from Saxony, but his early history is not precisely known. However, there is no doubt that Poland became his second homeland. In recognition of his merits, he was ennobled at the 1775 Sejm. He was an extremely talented man. He executed medals in late Baroque and Classicist style with equal ease, and some of his works even contain elements of Romanticism. Unfortunately, Holzhaeusser only partially completed the task entrusted to him. By 1792, when he died at the age of fifty-one, he had created eleven medals depicting rulers from Bolesław II the Bold to Alexander I. It does not mean that the series was not continued. That work was undertaken by Jan Jakub Reichel - Holzhaeusser's successor and perhaps disciple. The result was twenty-three medals, minted in silver and bronze; a few were also made of gold. According to some sources only one specimen of each type was minted from this metal, intended especially for the King.

The presented medal is the first of the series. It is an original specimen struck in silver. Together with other medals of this cycle it does not present any special artistic values. In this respect, however, the joint work of Holzhaeusser and Reichl did not differ from similar series made in Germany or France.

Leszek Poniewozik