Pendant/Medal with the Fall of Man and the Crucifixion

Description In 1535, Reinhart completed a stunning portrait medal of Johann Friedrich, duke of Saxony, and, the following year, the duke commissioned this medal, to which on some versions a ring was added to make it into a pendant. With its particular interpretation of the theme of the Fall and redemption of man, so central to the Reformation theology preached by Martin Luther and his followers, it is the first Lutheran medal.

Conservation

Date	Description	Narrative
1/31/1964	Treatment	cleaned; coated
1/13/1988	Examination	examined for condition

Exhibitions

• All that Glisters: Thirty Centuries of Golden Deception. Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration, New York. 1950.

Provenance Mrs. Henry Walters Sale, New York; Douglas H. Gordon, Baltimore, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1943, by gift.

Inscriptions On the obverse (The Fall): ET.SICVT.IN.ADAM.OMNES.MORIVNTVR.ITA.ET.IN.CHRISTVM.OMNES.VIVIFICABVNTVR.VNVSQVISQVE.INORDINE.SVO below the scene on a scroll: IONNAIS.FRIDERICVS.ELECTOR.DVX.SAXONIE.FIERI.FECIT On the reverse (The Crucifixion): VT.MOSES.EREXIT.SERPeTe; ITa.chrS.IN.CRVCE.EXALTATVS.ET.RESVSCiTATVS.CAPVT.SERPeTiS.CONTIViT.VT. On a scroll beneath the main scene: SPES.MEA.IN.DEO.EST.

Credit Gift of Douglas H. Gordon, 1943