Overgang van Christina van Zweden tot de Rooms Katholieke kerk 1654

This silver coin commemorates the conversion of Christina of Sweden to the Roman Catholic Church. It would have been struck from a die engraved in steel, a difficult and skilled process which is how the sharp detailing was achieved. Coins like this, made of precious metal, functioned as a form of portable value, embodying a nexus of political and economic power. While ostensibly celebrating a spiritual event, the coin is also a statement of earthly authority, meant to circulate widely, reinforcing social order. The act of minting itself is a highly controlled process, with laborers performing repetitive tasks to produce identical units on a vast scale. In this respect, even a commemorative object like this one is deeply implicated in the history of industrialization. By attending to these material and social factors, we can understand the coin as more than just a symbol of religious conviction, but as a product of its time.