5 Euro Baroque of Courland

Courland — the western duchy that spent much of its existence as a semi-autonomous vassal state under Polish-Lithuanian suzerainty — produced a surprisingly ambitious architectural culture in the 17th and 18th centuries, funded largely by timber and flax exports to Western Europe. The Rundāle Palace, designed by Bartolomeo Rastrelli and begun in 1736, remains the most visible product of that prosperity. Latvijas Banka's selective use of gilding on this issue is a direct technical response to the subject matter rather than decorative instinct.