Flemish goldsmith, Medallion with the Apotheosis of Charles V
Photogallery
Flemish goldsmith, medallion with the Apotheosis of Charles V
The medallion shows Charles V as Holy Roman Emperor receiving homage from the princes he defeated during his military campaigns. The image faithfully reproduces the original plate of a series of 12 prints on the Victories of Charles V, published in Antwerp in the mid-sixteenth century (Dirck Volckertsz Coornhrert from a drawing by Marten van Hemskeerk, Divi Caroli V Imp Opt. Max. Victoriae, Antwerpen: Hieronymus Cock, 1556); these, in turn, gave rise to a series of eight wooden sculptures now in the Museum of Vienna, carved in southern Germany around 1560-70. Both the Viennese reliefs and the Vatican medallion seem to have been intended to decorate luxurious wooden cabinets of Dutch influence, such as the so-called Wrangel-Schrank in the Landesmuseum in Münster (1566).