Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
1 Ducat - Georg Wilhelm
| Issuer | Duchy of Liegnitz-Brieg |
|---|---|
| Year | 1674-1675 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Gold (.986) |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Draped bust of Duke Georg Wilhelm facing right, wearing armour with a lace cravat and a flowing wig with long curls falling to the shoulders, set within a beaded inner circle. The circumferential Latin legend reads GEORG. WILHELM. D.G. DVX. SIL., identifying the sitter as Duke of Silesia by the grace of God. The portrait is rendered in high relief in the Baroque manner characteristic of late seventeenth-century German ducal coinage. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse script | Latin |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Georg Wilhelm was the last Piast duke of Liegnitz-Brieg-Wohlau, and these ducats were struck in the final years before the dynasty's extinction. When he died without a male heir in 1675, the Habsburgs immediately seized the duchy, overriding a 1537 inheritance treaty that had promised the lands to Brandenburg. The legal dispute between Vienna and Berlin over that broken compact would simmer for decades, eventually feeding into the broader Silesian grievances that Frederick the Great used to justify his invasion of 1740.
Ducats dated 1675 were almost certainly struck before Georg Wilhelm's death in November of that year.