50 ZŁ AUGUSTUS III - TREASURES OF STANISŁAW AUGUST

The twenty-third and last coin of the Treasures of Stanisław August medal series depicts Augustus III, from the Wettin dynasty, from 1733 elector of Saxony (as Frederick Augustus II), elected king in Poland on October 5, 1733 under the protection of Saxon and Russian troops, crowned on 17 January 1734 in Kraków. At the same time, some of the nobility elected Stanisław Leszczyński as king, as a result of which a war of succession broke out, ending with the capitulation of Stanisław's supporters. In 1736, the pacification sejm was held, the only unbroken sejm during the reign of Augustus III. Poland, not being a party to the Seven Years' War and the military conflicts between Saxony and Prussia, suffered as a theater for the marches of foreign troops and lost its position as a strong state. Despite this, the country experienced a period of economic prosperity and cultural development.

The reverse of the coin shows a bust of the king transferred from the medal (according to a painting by Marcello Bacciarelli) in the right profile, wearing a small wig with a harcap, a halsband with a jabot fastened with a pin, a tailcoat with rich embroidery and decorative buttons, with braided lapels and a ribbon of the Order of the Golden Fleece on neck.

On the obverse of the coin we read the text from the reverse of the medal (in translation): Son of Augustus II, elected in the year of our Lord 1733, crowned in the year of our Lord 1734. Pious and gracious, he was unable to give Poland the goods he wished for, because 12 sejms were interrupted in a row.

He died in Dresden in the year of our Lord 1763, at the age of 67, in the 30th year of his reign, on October 5.

Frederick Augustus II, son of the Elector of Saxony and Polish King Augustus II and Krystyna Eberhardyna, was born in Dresden in 1696 as another Elector of Saxony. Raised in the Lutheran faith by his grandmother Anna Zofia, he received a court education and went on a long, eight-year Grand Tour. To take the Polish throne, he converted to Catholicism in 1712. His wife, Archduchess Maria Josepha Habsburg, a staunch Catholic, supported the king in his foreign policy and activities in the field of culture. They had 14 children who became associated with many European courts through marriage. In internal politics, August III maneuvered between magnate coteries, relying on the decisions of Minister Henryk Brühl. He promoted music and opera, and enjoyed lavish celebrations, mainly in Dresden. He enriched the Dresden art collections. He expanded the Royal Castle in Warsaw.