Hortus Deliciarum shows a pretzel at a banquet for the Persian King Ahasuerus. ( Wikimedia Commons)
One of the earliest historical depictions of the soft pretzel may be an illustration in the 1190 Hortus Deliciarum, which shows a pretzel in the scene of the Persian King Ahasuerus at a banquet prepared for him by Esther. There are many later paintings of that Biblical feast, by Rembrandt and Jan Victors in the 1660s, for example, but no others show a pretzel.
