Germany, uncertain medallist in Nuremberg, Willibald Pirckheimer (1470-1530, lawyer, author, Renaissance humanist and close friend of Albrecht Dürer), bronze medal, dated 1517, BILIBALDVS PIRCKHEYMER, bust facing right wearing hat and fur collar, rev., MDXVII INICIV SAPIAE TIMOR DOMINI inscribed on scroll above Pirckheimer’s coat of arms, with border of tendrils and foliage, 78.4 to maximum of 80.0mm, 192g (Habich 17, pl II, 5; Mende 5; Trusted 26), pierced, scratched behind the bust, a very fine contemporary cast with brown patina, extremely rare. Matthias Mende in Dürer-Medaillen (1983) lists two examples in silver (Vienna and the Morgenroth collection, Chicago), four in bronze (Basel, Berlin, Gotha and ex Peus sale 283, 1974, lot 1687) and four in lead (Dresden, V&A, Nuremberg and ex Reichmann auction 18, 1921, lot 2). The authorship of the medal, seemingly one of the earliest medallic works in Germany and one of the most sophisticated, has been much discussed with no definitive conclusions. Marjorie Trusted in describing the lead medal in the V&A Museum (78mm), has put forward the various arguments made by different authorities over the years, starting with Habich’s corpus of 1929-34 where Hans Schwarz or the Master of the Stabius Medal were considered as possible candidates but no precise attribution has been made. Pirckheimer gave a portrait medal of himself to Erasmus and the gift was discussed in correspondence between the two men in 1524-5 but it is not possible to know if it was an example of the present medal under discussion or some other piece (of which no examples are currently known). Pirckheimer’s only other known portrait medal was made later by Matthes Gebel in 1530. Habich thought the portrait of Pirckheimer to be influenced by Dürer’s charcoal drawing of him of 1503 but Mende considered the style to resemble more that of Hans von Kulmbach (c. 1480-1522) who was at one time apprenticed to Dürer in Nuremberg. The fabric of the present medal suggests that it was taken from a wax model, unusual for German medals whose models were normally made of wood or stone but in the same way in which the undated Stabius medal was cast. Given that it is dated 1517 it is likely that the medal was cast in the Vischer workshop in Nuremberg. The reverse Latin inscription translates as “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10).
Estimate: 5000 - 7000