WORLD COINS

Following the death of Queen Victoria (1901), Emperor Franz Joseph became the longest-reigning sovereign in Europe, and his Diamond Jubilee was a tribute to a ruler who had come to embody the continuity of the Empire. His reign had begun amid the revolutions of 1848, including the Hungarian Revolution. He suffered military defeats and was driven out of Lombardy by the House of Savoy and later by the Prussians in Germany. Yet he reinvented the empire through the 1867 Compromise with Hungary, establishing a dual monarchy, and eventually forged a close alliance with the newly formed German Empire. On a personal level, his life was marked by repeated tragedy: the suicide of his only son, the assassination of his wife by an anarchist, the execution of his brother Maximilian in Mexico, and finally, the assassination of his heir in Sarajevo. Revered throughout the empire, Franz Joseph presided over its last major territorial expansion with the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908—an act that, while consolidating imperial control, sparked a significant international crisis. This 100 Crown gold coin was designed by Rudolf Marschall and Rudolf Neuberger. It is popularly known as “The Lady in the Clouds” due to its reverse design, which depicts Austria personified, holding a laurel wreath and resting her arm on the imperial shield. The legend refers to the twelve lustra of the emperor’s reign. On the obverse, Franz Joseph appears with his titles of Emperor of Austria, Apostolic King of Hungary, and King of Bohemia, Galicia, and Illyria. The coin was minted at the Kremnitz (Kremnica) mint.