This wooden medallion was almost certainly used as a games-piece. The depth of the turned wood border would protect the gesso portrait within during use. Games of skill such as chess and draughts with their chivalric and military associations had deep roots in patrician leisure, and Luxury boards and games-pieces became common possesions amongst the elite of Renaissance Europe.

Probably produced in series, sets of such games- pieces comprised of perhaps thirty-two pieces, which have subsequently been split up and in part lost. It is likely that they were made in Augsburg in the mid-sixteenth century, copied from slightly earlier medals by Friedrich Hagenauer and others. Emminent personages such as Charles V or his brother Ferdinand are usually portrayed on this type of games-piece.