Contests in Ore
The Portrait Medal in the German Renaissance
Easy to reproduce, transport and distribute, portrait medals provide a unique “Who’s Who” of the 16th century. Together with painting, sculpture and prints, medals played a seminal role in the art of German-speaking countries at the beginning of the Modern Era.
This is the first exhibition to offer a comprehensive survey of the cultural-historical spectrum, the complex mediality, and the dynamic geography of medals produced and circulated in German-speaking countries in the early Modern Era. The world of medals and their cousins, small-scale portraits, documents that German Renaissance art also functions as an arena for diverse forms of rivalry, cultural exchange and competing media.
