GERMANY. Württemberg. Carl Rudolf von Württemberg-Neuenstadt, 1737-1738. Box medal 1738 (Silver, 41 mm, 15.64 g, 12 h), repoussé with 14 hand-tinted and numbered medallions. On the execution of Joseph Süß Oppenheimer (1698-1738). IUD•IOSEPH•SÜS 1738 OPPENHEIMER Draped bust of Joseph Süß Oppenheimer to left. Rev. •AUS•DIESEM•VOGELHAUS• - •SCHAUT•SÜS•DER• // •SCHELM• - •HERAUS• Gallows erected on a masonry pedestal, with a birdcage suspended from the crossbeam containing Süß Oppenheimer; several ravens perched nearby or in flight. Binder 71. Clauss 58. Domanig II, 835. Kirschner 17. Preßler 547. Simmermacher -. Wurster -. Württembergische Landesmuseum MK 8163. Extremely rare and of great historical interest. About extremely fine.


Joseph Süß Oppenheimer, remembered in hostile contemporary propaganda as ‘Jud Süß,’ served as the influential financial adviser to Duke Karl Alexander of Württemberg. Tasked with restoring the duchy’s strained finances, he introduced sweeping fiscal reforms that bypassed the traditional estates and bureaucracy, earning him powerful political enemies.

After the duke’s sudden death in 1737, Oppenheimer was arrested, subjected to a highly politicized trial on charges including corruption, financial misconduct, and abuse of office, and ultimately condemned to death in what is now widely regarded as a miscarriage of justice. On 4 February 1738, he was publicly executed outside Stuttgart under extraordinary military security. Rather than being hanged in the conventional manner, he was strangled by the executioner before his body was placed in a red-painted iron cage suspended from a twelve-meter-high gallows. His remains were deliberately left on public display for six years as a warning and a symbol of state authority. The sensational execution inspired a number of rare satirical medals, whose imagery reflected the anti-Jewish sentiment and political propaganda surrounding one of the most notorious judicial executions of eighteenth-century Germany.

When opened by unscrewing its two halves, the present medal reveals an elaborate series of 14 numbered lithographic inserts. Two of these are slightly larger and pasted to the inner faces of the medal’s covers. Framing the sequence as its beginning and end, they depict Oppenheimer’s birth in Heidelberg and, once again, his death on the gallows. The smaller sheets illustrate individual episodes from his life, combining historically attested events with fictional or legendary scenes. Five of the original inserts are missing; copies of these are, however, included with the present lot.