500zł Augustus II the Strong - Treasures of Stanisław August

"Treasures of Stanislaw August" is a unique series of gold and silver collector coins with face values of 500 zloty and 50 zloty - it reproduces the famous 18th century medallic series with the images of the kings of Poland, commissioned by Stanisław August Poniatowski.

The royal medals were created at the Warsaw mint between 1791 and 1798 by two distinguished medallists - Jan Filip Holzhaeusser and Jan Jakub Reichel. The medals were modelled on portraits painted between 1768 and 1771 by Marcello Bacciarelli for the Marble Room of the Royal Castle in Warsaw.

The coins issued by the National Bank of Poland are faithful replicas of the medals, preserving the diameter and height of relief of the originals. This applies to the royal portraits presented on the reverses of the coins. The backs of the medals with biographies of the kings, placed on the obverses of the coins, have been reduced in size, because they are accompanied by the name of the state, the emblem of the Republic of Poland, the face value and the year of issue. The biographies of the monarchs, as well as the inscriptions on the obverses of the medals accompanying the portraits of the monarchs, are in Latin. The final editing of these texts was probably carried out by King Stanisław August himself. The names of the monarchs in Polish have been placed on the sides of the coins; the name of the series, "Treasures of Stanislaus Augustus", can be found there.

The twenty first coin of the series shows Augustus II the Strong of the Wettin dynasty, Elector of Saxony from 1694 (as Frederick Augustus I), elected King of Poland on 27 June 1697 and crowned on 15 September 1697. As an elector he engaged in 1700 in the Great Northern War and as a result of military defeat in 1706 yielded the crown over to Stanisław Leszczyński, who was supported by Sweden. Following the defeat of King Charles XII in the battle of Poltava in 1709, Augustus regained the Polish throne with the support of Russia.

The reverse of the coin features a bust of the king transferred from a medal (according to a painting by Marcello Bacciarelli), with the profile facing left, in a wig with a queue, wearing a stock tie with a small jabot fastened with a pin, dressed in a cuirass and a tailcoat with frogged lapels adorned with the star and ribbon of the Order of the White Eagle, and the Order of the Golden Fleece on a ribbon.

On the obverse of the coin, the text from the reverse of the medal (in translation) reads: Elected on the 27th day of June Anno Domini 1697, crowned on the 15th day of September. Under the Treaty of Karlowitz he regained Kamieniec Podolski, which had been captured by the Turks; driven out of the kingdom by the Swedish king Charles XII, he returned to the homeland Anno Domini 1709. He died in Warsaw on the 1st day of February Anno Domini 1733, at the age of 63, in the 36th year of his reign.