Reinhold de Rosa, Military Commander in Armor, Copper Engraving, circa 1670

This seventeenth century copper engraving shows Reinhold de Rosa at three quarter length in full plate armor, his long hair falling to his shoulders, with a mustache and pointed beard, a broad lace collar and a sash across his chest. He holds a commander's baton in his right hand and rests his left on his hip beside his sword, while a plumed helmet sits at his side. The portrait is enclosed in an oval band inscribed in Latin, and the whole sheet is filled with a dense trophy of war: banners and standards, lances, drums, a cannon and cannonballs, armor and a sextant, with touches of red color on the flags.

The oval inscription names him as the most illustrious, noble and valiant lord Reinhold de Rosa, hereditary lord in Seewald, Gänsehof and other estates, in the service of His Royal Majesty in Poland and Sweden, colonel and commander of a regiment. A cartouche above carries the motto "Virtuti nil invium", nothing is impassable to virtue, beside the dates "Nat. 1590" and "Mort. 1664". Below the oval his coat of arms, three roses beneath a crested helm with peacock feathers, is flanked by two figures above a cartouche of Latin verse beginning "Te, Rosa, commendat terris Gens magna Parentum", signed "Martin Fridrich Seidel Consiliar. Brandenb."

The Rosen family was a Baltic German noble house from Livonia whose members served the crowns of Sweden and Poland as soldiers throughout the Thirty Years War and the northern wars. Martin Friedrich Seidel (1621 to 1693) was a Brandenburg councilor and antiquarian who collected and commissioned portraits of distinguished men connected with Brandenburg and Prussia, and his signed dedication marks this plate as part of that circle.

Portraits of this kind, with elaborate trophies, armorial bearings and dedicatory verse, are true documents of baroque military culture. This is a rare and characterful sheet for collectors of seventeenth century portraiture and military history.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.