Penning met portret van Sigismund III, koning van Polen en Zweden 1625

Curator: Hmm, striking! It looks like an ancient proclamation rendered in miniature... Editor: Indeed. What we have here is a 1625 engraving, titled "Penning met portret van Sigismund III, koning van Polen en Zweden," or a medal portraying Sigismund III, King of Poland and Sweden. Curator: Sigismund. That guy looks severe! All rigid lines, especially that high collar. Like wearing a stony fence around his neck. But also… regal, I suppose, the crown does most of the talking. It has this sort of confident directness about it. It kind of reminds me of trying to act tough when I was little. Editor: Absolutely, the high collar was high fashion and high status at that time. Now, beyond portraiture, it’s valuable as an artifact illustrating 17th-century iconography and royal representation. Notice how meticulously rendered the coat-of-arms on the flip side are—each heraldic symbol has encoded stories within it. A testament to symbolic systems of the period. The work itself demonstrates the linearity and detail afforded by engraving as a printing medium, too. Curator: Linear is the word. It's all about lines here. Thick, thin, close, far... the magic's in the density, isn't it? This little medallion tries to scream power but almost ends up looking insecure. I keep seeing the king's vulnerability... and the weight of what he represents... but, maybe that's just me? Editor: Perhaps! Yet it’s a dance between symbolism and subject. It seems to me to communicate that despite their station or era, those figures that led empires were people marked and defined by their moment, in the same ways we all are. Curator: What an unexpectedly human moment.