Shields of the Emperor Matthias

The process involved incising the image with a burin, allowing for the minute details that characterize the surrounding heraldic devices.

Van de Passe transferred the medal’s design onto a copper plate, employing fine line engraving to capture the original’s metallic sheen. The process involved incising the image with a burin, allowing for the minute details that characterize the surrounding heraldic devices. The resulting print retains the crispness of a struck medal, with sharp contrasts between black ink and the white paper background.

Created shortly after Matthias’s death, the print was likely intended for distribution among his supporters and collectors of numismatic art. Copies of the engraving circulated in the early seventeenth‑century Dutch market, where van de Passe’s workshop was active. Surviving specimens are held in several European print collections, documenting the work’s continued scholarly interest.

The early 1600s saw a flourishing of medallic art as a means of political propaganda, especially within the Holy Roman Empire. Van de Passe, a prominent engraver in the Dutch Republic, frequently reproduced imperial medals for a broader audience, merging the prestige of metalwork with the accessibility of print media.