GERMANY. Straßburg (?). Cast Medal 1609 (Silver, 59 mm, 30.90 g, 12 h), on alchemy. TRI-A MIRABIL DEVS ET HOMO - TRIN ET VN MATER ET - VIRGO Coat of arms containing the symbols of the Four Evangelists, eagle, ox, angel and lion, surrounding the Golden Fleece; above, on three crowns, Christ holding sword and scepter, God the Father holding globus cruciger, and the dove of the Holy Spirit. Rev. ✱NATVRA ING SVPAT NAQ MODO•TOT FVERAM NVNCO•CLAR EXTO // ESS - VNA / M T.PI - C I.W. / SIC VOLVERE FATA / 1609 Alchemical emblem composed of a modified symbol of Mercury, surmounted by a pelican feeding its young and enclosing an eagle below; female figure holding the symbol of Mercury and a cornucopia to left, male figure holding the symbol of sulphur and a scepter to right. Carrington Bolton, Henry: Contributions of Alchemy to Numismatics, New York 1890, pp. 41f. Engel/Lehr -. Goppel -. Reyher, Samuel: Dissertatio de nummis quibusdam ex Chymico metallo factis, Kiel 1692, p. 15. Voltz -. An exceptionally rare, finely cast and enigmatic alchemical medal. Contemporary tooling, otherwise, extremely fine.


The attribution of this remarkable medal to Strasbourg remains uncertain and rests almost entirely on its close relationship to a medal by the Strasbourg medallist Friedrich Fecher (1588-1660), whose obverse is nearly identical (see lot 1397 below). One conspicuous difference, however, is the Golden Fleece placed at the center of the coat of arms on the present piece. Absent from Fecher’s medal, this small but highly suggestive detail creates a subtle conceptual bridge between the explicitly Christian imagery of the obverse and the thoroughly alchemical program of the reverse.

The medal was already discussed in 1692 by the mathematician and astronomer Samuel Reyher (1635-1714), yet even Reyher was unable to identify its maker, patron, or the precise circumstances of its production. Its legends condense the medal’s complex iconographic program into a series of Christian and alchemical paradoxes: TRIA [SVNT] MIRABIL[IA] DEVS ET HOMO - TRIN[VS], ET VN[VS], MATER ET - VIRGO (‘Three are the marvels: God and Man, Threefold and One, Mother and Virgin’ in Latin). The reverse legend, by contrast, refers directly to the alchemical transmutation of lead into gold, essentially proclaiming: ‘I was lead, but through transformation I now emerge as the brightest gold.’

Reyher already recognized the extraordinary conjunction of the four prophetic creatures, the Christian Trinity, and an elaborate system of alchemical symbols. Nearly two centuries later, Henry Carrington Bolton returned to the medal in his 1890 study of alchemy and numismatics, interpreting its imagery as an unmistakable celebration of metallic transmutation, above all the transformation of lead into gold.

The medal has occasionally been associated with the Counts of Waldeck, based on an expansion of the initials C I.W. beneath the left-hand figure as C[OMES] I[N] W[ALDECK] (‘Count of Waldeck’ in Latin). Such an attribution is hardly convincing, however. An official connection with the Waldeck dynasty would presumably have been expressed far more prominently and, above all, through recognizable heraldic devices, none of which appear on the medal.

The close correspondence between the obverse of the present medal and that of the Fecher piece therefore remains the only substantial basis for a possible attribution to Strasbourg. An attribution to Fecher himself, however, can almost certainly be ruled out on chronological grounds. Fecher is documented in Strasbourg as a goldsmith only from 1612 onward, while his earliest securely attested medals date from 1627. Despite a reception history extending back more than three centuries, the authorship and precise origin of this exceptionally rare medal thus remain unresolved – a mystery entirely in keeping with the legendary and elusive world of early seventeenth-century alchemy.