1 Ducat - John William

John William, Elector Palatine, died in June 1716 after a reign defined by his dogged — and ultimately unsuccessful — attempt to reclaim the Lower Palatinate territories stripped from his family after the Thirty Years' War. His Düsseldorf court became a significant center of Catholic patronage, and his ducats reflect the ambitions of a prince who spent lavishly on image while his territorial claims went nowhere in Vienna.

The 1711 date places this piece five years before his death, during the final phase of negotiations surrounding the War of the Spanish Succession, in which John William had backed the Habsburg claimant.