GERMANY. Uncertan mint. Circa 1720s-1760s. Medal (Silver, 50 mm, 28.21 g, 5 h), a fully engraved medal made in honour of a loving couple. Sihe diese bede Schertzen / Den Sie lieben Sich v. hertzen = ( look at these two fooling around, they love each other with all their hearts ) Young man and woman sitting on a canopied couch or bed, apparently inside a building, beginning to mess around with each other (i.e., a possible baroque precursor of the Me Too movement); in the field, townscape with interested locals looking out on the couple from the windows and doors of the surrounding buildings. Rev. Crown over a cursive mirror-image monogram set between two palm branches. Apparently only known from this example. Very skillfully engraved. Toned and very attractive. Extremely fine.

The form of the “mirror-image” monogram - in which the monogram is depicted twice, facing left and right - might also be termed a “janiform” monogram. Such monograms appear on the coinage of a number of mints in Germany, among other places, during the first half of the 18th century.