Why does coins often use a great man as a pattern?
karenren
Posts: 78 ✭
Why does coins often use a great man as a pattern? 
Are there any other patterns?
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That’s a woman. Lady Liberty.
dude looks like a lady
m
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
Indeed, a Miss Anna Willess Williams (1857-1926) of Philadelphia:
Earlier picture removed at the express direction of Mr. Roger Burdette, who claims some rights to this image. However, the original source states the image is in the public domain.
We all look alike
@Hemispherical There is a women in this coin, but I mean that there are many coins using the portrait of famous person .
@BillDugan1959 She looks kind and genial.
@Justacommeman She is indeed a lady .
@karenren Miss Williams was a longtime school teacher, never married. Her role as a model in the Morgan project is well-documented, see Wikipedia. She also modeled for the artist Thomas Eakins, who recommended her to Mr. Morgan. Her profile was considered 'perfectly Classical' by those artists. She later dismissed her early modeling as a youthful misadventure.
pre-20th century, most U.S. coins were neo-classical designs.
Starting with the Lincoln Cent, most circulating U.S. coins from then on have been "memorial" coins.
@ BillDugan1959 I see, thank you for your explanation.
@jmlanzaf what is neo-classical designs?
Neo-classical designs are the resurrection of themes from Classical Roman and Greek times. The Liberty images are resurrections of Greek and Roman liberty motifs. Things like oak leaves, eagles and the like are resurrections of Green and Roman motifs.
The French artist Jean-Antoine Houdon did a marble statue of George Washington from life (delivered 1796), and the bust from that statue was the later basis for Flanigan's portrait on the Washington Quarter. The following circulation coin portraits were in much the same style, and you might call the present coin portrait style 'Houdonesque'.
Or you might not.
@jmlanzaf I understand.
Thanks!
@BillDugan1959 Houdonesque? I get a new word and a new definition.
The designers are paying tribute to Presidents of the past is why a lot of coins have men on them.
"A dog breaks your heart only one time and that is when they pass on". Unknown
@1Mike1 Maybe.
I really wish they would stop with the 'dead president' themes and all current depictions of people on coins... return to art.... Cheers, RickO
Agree. I'd also like to see endangered species on circulating coins.
"A dog breaks your heart only one time and that is when they pass on". Unknown
Why don't we just agree from here on out to substitute the term "ex-president" instead of " dead president? " I think it has a better ring to it. Somewhat more respectful. As one of our ex-presidents might have put it......KINDER AND GENTLER.
For the first 120-150 years of our nation's coinage (depending on the denomination), we HAD female images almost exclusively on them....then we went to ex-presidents + Franklin. Then with the dollar coin we had Suzie Anthony and Sacagawea.
Seems both groups have gotten plenty of 'face time'....
One of my favorite alts in quite awhile
m
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
Heather’s back
We should start calling her Elmer Fudd.
WooooHoooo! No more challenge coin promoting! Thanks Heather!
Took a bit longer than a second for it click.
Well... as long as this is still on the front page... I swear that the figure on the Barber dime, quarter and half looks like a dude to me. I suppose if I squint and admire the Phrygian cap, I can see a classically good-looking lady. What's the real deal, tho?
It's not clear why so many US coins have Franco-Neo Classical portraits with fat cheeks and jowls. The Victorian ideal of female beauty was much chubbier than the 20th century version. Here is a more balanced portrait by William Barber that predates Morgan or the later W Barber dollar designs. This is J-1457.
[Courtesy HA.com]
Just a stunning portrait.
Did I miss some bongo bongoing ?!
Mrs Bongo Bongo perhaps.
Director Linderman was on the verge of using Barber's portrait (above) for the proposed standard silver dollar, when he learned the Morgan had arrived. From there forward everything changed.
Curiously, only only 4 months after Morgan's dollar entered production, Linderman was complaining about the Old English lettering and other things -- even thought they has been present on all the spread-wing half and dollar patterns by Morgan and W Barber.
I also wonder why our "ideal Liberty" portraits were so backward when the Wyons could produce such beautiful coin designs as this:
[HA.com]
And American sculptor Hiram Powers could turn out neo-classical busts like this in the 1840-50s.
[Gibbs Museum]
Were/are we so backward?
Darn! No more super fantastic, very "delicate" custom challenge coins.
Thank you Heather. And who ever else is involved. Obvious from the start. THANK YOU!!
Or in the case of Barber coinage, "Lady Looks like a Dude". When I was a kid, I used to think "Barber" was the name of the dude on the coin
Me too!
Smitten with DBLCs.
Were/are we so backward?
Artistically, yes. That's why the American Art Union was formed in 1839.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Art-Union