1721 Copper Engraving Portrait Ferdinand Bavaria Prince Archbishop Cologne EUM2

This is an original 1721 black and white copper engraving of "Ferdinand Churfürst zu Cölln, Hertzog in Baÿern." This is a portrait of Ferdinand of Bavaria, Prince-Archbishop-Elector of Cologne from 1612 to 1650 and Prince-Bishop of Hildesheim, Liège, Münster, and Paderborn. He was the son of William V, Duke of Bavaria. The Electorate of Cologne was an ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire. It consisted of the temporal possessions of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cologne, and was ruled by the Archbishop in his function as Prince-Elector of the Empire. The capitals of the electorate were Cologne (until 1288) and then Bonn. It was secularized in 1803 during the German Mediatisation. The portrait is surrounded by a wonderful decorative motif featuring the Oldest Electoral Hat, signifying the subject as a Prince-Elector, or simply Elector, a member of the electoral college of the Holy Roman Empire. These individuals had the function of electing the Roman King or, fro