Margaret von Firmian, 1509-1536, Wife of Caspar von Frundsberg
Medium
lead//Old after-cast
Dimensions
overall (diameter): 6.14 cm (2 7/16 in.) gross weight: 60.1 gr (0.132 lb.)
Classification
Sculpture
Department
CSD
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Samuel H. Kress Collection
Accession Number
1957.14.1301
Art Historical Context
This finely cast lead medal by Friedrich Hagenauer portrays Margaret von Firmian at age twenty, three years after her marriage to Caspar von Frundsberg. Created in 1529, the small roundel exemplifies the Renaissance revival of ancient Roman coinage as a means of commemorating living individuals. Hagenauer, one of the most accomplished German medallists of the period, worked primarily in Augsburg and produced hundreds of such portraits for members of the nobility, clergy, and merchant elite. The choice of lead allowed for crisp detail and relatively inexpensive replication, making these medals...
About the Artist
Friedrich Hagenauer · 1490–1546
Friedrich Hagenauer (c. 1490–c. 1546) was a German sculptor and medallist of the Northern Renaissance whose finely wrought portrait medals and carved reliefs placed him among the most accomplished practitioners of his craft in early sixteenth-century Germany. The details of his early life and training remain incompletely documented, but he is believed to have been born in Strasbourg and to have re...