An Augsburg silver medal commemorating the emigration of the Salzburg Protestants
Avers depicting a Salzburg family leaving their home beneath a banderole with a biblical inscription. Revers with a depiction of Frederick William I welcoming the refugees beneath a further banderole. Containing 17 round, numbered and delicately coloured engravings depicting religious life in Salzburg with biblical inscriptions, decorated with painted fruit to the reverse. The individual engravings arranged in a circle around a depiction of Christ as the good shepherd. The interior of the lid and base fitted with two hand-coloured maps of Salzburg and Prussia, one signed “Daniel Höckhinger exc. A.V.". The engravings in good condition, some of the connecting elements defective. D 4.5; H 0.5 cm, weight 23 g.
Marks of Daniel Höckhinger, c. 1732.
After repressing the Protestant minorities in Salzburg for years, the region's Prince Bishop Leopold Anton von Firmian finally issued an emigration edict on 31st October 1731, which effectively evicted anyone not of Catholic faith from his lands. In the Spring of 1732, over 20,000 Protestants were forced to leave their homes in Salzburg. Prussia was one of several states to welcome the refugees: King Frederick William I provided them with favourable conditions for settlement in Eastern Prussia. This not only allowed him to resettle lands previously depopulated as a result of plague, but also to present himself to the world as a figurehead of the Protestant movement in Europe. The people of Prussia received the migrants with open arms. Medallions such as this were produced alongside sermons, texts, poems, songs, and pamphlets commemorating the events and recording the fates of those displaced. Further examples can be found in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and the Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin.
Literature
Cf.: Marsch, Die Salzburger Emigration in Bildern, Weissenhorn 1986, p. 95: "Besonders sorgfältig in seiner Ausführung ist der Einlagenzyklus von Daniel Höckhinger; diesen gibt es als Variante auch im ovalen Bildformat. […] [Seine] Erzählung reicht […]bis zur Ankunft in Königsberg und bis zum Haus- und Feldbau in der neuen Heimat". For the accompanying medal cf. cat.: Slg. Whiting 1983, Nr. 471. For information on Remshard cf.: Thieme/Becker, vol 28, p. 151.