1/2 Thaler Death of Joanna Elisabeth

Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorf died in Paris in 1760, largely forgotten by European courts — and by her own daughter. That daughter was Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst, who by then had already reinvented herself as Catherine the Great and had little political use for a mother who had been expelled from Russia in 1745 for conducting unauthorized diplomacy on behalf of Frederick II of Prussia. The half thaler memorializing Joanna Elisabeth was a dynastic obligation from Anhalt-Zerbst, not a gesture of grief.

Death thalers of minor German principalities from this period were often struck in very limited numbers for distribution to court mourners rather than circulation.