This ambitious double portrait medal by the versatile engraver from the Joachimstal mint in Bohemia, Concz Welcz, can be compared to a similar medal by the same artist of about ten years before, which shows the same two sitters beneath a single arch and with a similar cherub holding two shields below. The reverse of the earlier medal shows a bird's eye view of the siege of Pavia (1525), taken from a graphic model published in 1530, with a wealth of detail, similar to the reverse of the present medal. The graphic model for the battle of Mhlberg (1547), was published in 1550. For the figure of Ferdinand I, Welcz has faithfully copied a portrait by Lucas Cranach, published as a woodcut in 1547. The emperor is portrayed as a widower, mourning his wife Anne who died in the same year.

The reverse of this medal records the capture of Johann Friedrich I, Elector of Saxony and leader of the Protestant cause in Germany, by the Imperial forces under the Duke of Alba, at Mhlberg, 24 April 1547.