1721 – D. Custos – Nicolaus Radzivil

Title:              “Nicolaus Radzivil Hertzog zu Dubinki und Bierze Obrister Feldhauptman des Grosshertzogthumbs Littau”​
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Description:

Extremely rare and highly detailed copper engraving portrait of Mikołaj Radziwiłł, known as “Rudy” — the Red — was one of the most powerful men in the 16th-century Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Twice Grand Hetman (1553–1566 and 1576–1584) and Grand Chancellor of Lithuania (1566–1579), he was the brother of Barbara Radziwiłł, whose marriage to King Sigismund II Augustus made her Queen of Poland. In 1564 he led Lithuanian forces to a decisive victory over Muscovite troops at the Battle of Ula — the same year he converted to Calvinism and became one of its leading patrons in the Commonwealth. Five years later, as the lone senator from the Grand Duchy, he refused to sign the 1569 Union of Lublin, objecting to terms he saw as eroding Lithuania’s standing within the union with Poland.
The portrait composition has an unusual history of its own. It descends from a design by the Augsburg engraver Dominicus Custos, made for Jacob Schrenck von Notzing’s Armamentarium Heroicum — a catalogue of the armor collection assembled by Archduke Ferdinand II of Tyrol at Ambras Castle, first published in Innsbruck in 1601 (German edition, 1603). More than a century later, the Leipzig publisher Moritz Georg Weidmann commissioned fresh plates after these earlier portraits for Franz Christoph von Khevenhüller’s Conterfet-Kupferstich, the illustrated companion volume to his monumental Annales Ferdinandei — this sheet, attributed to the engraver Johann Christoph Sysang, among them. It carries the printed plate number 209.
The half-length portrait — turned to the left, head inclined the other way, in plate armor with a sash across the right shoulder — sits in an oval frame within a rectangular border. Above, a ducal coronet rises from plumed mantling flanked by military banners and trumpets; below, an inscribed banderole reading “Nicolaus Radzivil Hertzog zu Dubinki und Bierze / Obrister Feldhauptman des Grosshertzogthumbs Littau” sits amid scrolling acanthus leaves.
Impressions of this exact plate are genuinely scarce. The National Museum — Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania in Vilnius, which holds its own copy (a gift of Prince Maciej Radziwiłł), records only four further known examples: three bearing the printed number 209, as here, and one without a number. A fitting piece for collectors of Radziwiłł family material, Grand Duchy of Lithuania history, or 18th-century German portrait-print publishing.

Provenance & references
• Comparable example: National Museum — Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, Vilnius, inv. VR-1065 (sheet 43.3 × 31.5 cm; gift of Prince Maciej Radziwiłł, 2017)
• Related, earlier-state Custos portraits: Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel; Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig; Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Kupferstich-Kabinett
• Ferenc, M., Mikołaj Radziwiłł “Rudy” (ok. 1515–1584): działalność polityczna i wojskowa, Kraków, 2008
• Ragauskienė, R., Lietuvos Didžiosios Kunigaikštystės kancleris Mikalojus Radvila Rudasis (apie 1515–1584 m.), Vilnius, 2002
• Katalog portretów osobistości polskich i obcych w Polsce działających, vol. 4, ed. H. Widacka, Warsaw, 1994, p. 168, cat. 4437

Author:                Dominicus Custos (1560–1612)
Sheet size:           33,4 x 20,8 cm
Year:                     1721
Technique:          copper engraving

Condition:
Very good, original condition.

This is an original antique map published in 1721 and NOT a modern copy or reprint

On your request I will provide a Certificate of Authenticity