German Artist
Allegory of Peace: A Roundel Likely Commemorating the Treaty of Hubertusburg, 15 February 1763
German or Austrian, circa 1763
Tempera on parchment, mounted on card
Diameter: 95 mm
$6,500
This painted roundel likely commemorates the Treaty of Hubertusburg, signed on 15 February 1763, which concluded the Central European front of the Seven Years’ War. Executed in tempera on parchment, it distills the event into a refined allegory: a dove descends from the heavens, bearing an olive branch, toward three crowns and sceptres resting upon a brocade cushion. The regalia can be read as those of the Holy Roman Empire (Austria), Prussia, and Saxony, arranged in balanced harmony beneath the descending dove. Their placement evokes not martial conquest but reconciliation, a carefully negotiated balance of power granted divine sanction.
This interpretation finds strong resonance in contemporary celebratory works. Johann David Schleuen’s engraving presents Pax and Bellona overseeing the reconciliation of the three rulers; H. Faber’s oil painting at the Royal Hospital Chelsea depicts a heavenly figure of peace hovering over monarchs; and a Dutch zinneprent stages the rulers beneath a celestial canopy. Each employs the same symbolic vocabulary of divine descent, crowned authority, and peace embodied by the olive branch.
While other peace treaties of the 18th century also inspired allegorical imagery, the mid-century dating, German provenance, and the specific triad of crowns make Hubertusburg the most compelling context for this work. With its circular format and intimate scale, the roundel may have served in a courtly or diplomatic setting, not as public propaganda but as a private commemoration of peace. It represents a rare survival of painted allegory—an emblem of reconciliation in a war-torn Europe, where crowns could be laid not in opposition but in accord.
PROVENANCE
Germany, Private Collection
LITERATURE
Fordham, Douglas. British Art and the Seven Years’ War: Allegiance and Autonomy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010.
Tite, Catherine, ed. Patronage, Visual Culture, and Courtly Life in Eighteenth-Century Germany and England. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2013.
