Karel Alexander, hertog van Lotharingen steekt met een Oostenrijks leger de Rijn over en neemt Hagenau, Weissenburg en Lauterburg in 1744

This silver medal was made by Martin Holtzhey to commemorate Karl Alexander's crossing of the Rhine with an Austrian army. Working with a precious metal like silver speaks to the status of the patron, but also to the artistic and economic context of the time. Holtzhey would have been a skilled artisan, trained in the techniques of die-striking to create the intricate designs you see here. Note the crispness of Karl Alexander's profile, and the allegorical scene of virtue triumphing over the river Rhine. The process of creating such a medal involved carving steel dies, and then using them to stamp the design onto a metal blank. In the 18th century, commemorative medals like these were not just art objects, but instruments of power, used to propagate political messages and celebrate military victories. Labor is therefore baked into the object on multiple levels - from the mining of the silver, to the craftsmanship that shaped it, to the political power it represents.