Some Recent Acquisitions

Askari

Louis Dupont’s 1938 College Saint Servais in Liege:





An anonymous French medal for Vins d’Arbois:





An anonymous French medal commemorating King Henri IV. Oval medals are actually quite uncommon.





Here’s an interesting bronze medal designed by Ed Geerts to commemorate an 1872 international prehistoric archeology and anthropology congress held in Brussels, Belgium. Note the mammoth skull at the woman’s feet. Furfooz, which is carved into the stone pillar on which she leans, is a Belgian town in a remarkable natural setting where geological, botanical and entomological curiosities can be found. The site includes prehistoric caves, remains of a medieval Roman fortress and reconstituted Roman thermal baths.





A lovely – and extremely rare – plaquette by the famous Belgian artist Godefroid Devreese to commemorate a performance by the Russian Ballet of their dance “Pastorale.”

lordmarcovan

I like the top one!

(Yeah, I know there's a BBL on the other.)

Edit: oh, now he goes and adds more.

I like the one with the BBL and the mammoth skull. Way cool.

goldrush00013

Very nice!!

Askari

I've added three more -- even nicer -- medals. I had to fiddle around with the images to reduce them sufficiently to upload.

farthing

Love both of the Belgium medals!

cacheman

I usually don't care for French medals, too foo-foo, but the King Henri IV above is exceptional, what great imagery and detail. Gotta love it!!

AuldFartte

Love the Geerts medal

... and all of them are beautiful

Askari

Actually, Farthing, the first one -- by Dupont -- is Belgian as well.

python

Nice, I like the Dupont and the Henry IV. Do you have some way to display your medals?

oldshep

Unbelievably beautiful,clean and well photographed!!!!!!!!!
Shep

syraq

This plaquette by Godefroid Devreese is really nice and unusual. Are these your pictures?

cosmicdebris

Awesome works of art!

laurentyvan

Every time I think I've managed to keep my fleeting passions for medals in check, the Darkside Sorcerer Puuuuuuuls me back in.

Louis Dupont’s 1938 College Saint Servais in Liege: I love the way the vertical theme repeats obverse to reverse without being too obvious about it -very art deco, not toofoo-foo, nothing foo-foo about Goetz, eh?

theboz11

Wonderful medals

ColinCMR

Cool! I've never seen an oval medal before.

Askari

<< <i>Do you have some way to display your medals?

Are these your pictures? >>

Sadly, no to both questions. I keep "intending" to come up with a way to display them -- just like I keep intending to learn to photograph them like some of y'all here -- but it's a challenge to find the time these days. Coming up with a way to attractively display them is a real problem since they come in so many shapes and sizes. Right now, the largest I have are a 125x105mm plaque and a round medal that measures 121mm in diameter, while the smallest is a mere 19mm. They include medals made of bronze, copper, silver, gold, brass, aluminum, white metal, tin, pewter, lead, iron, zinc, German silver, Tombac, copper-nickel, wood, terra cotta, porcelain, bois durci (an early form of plastic), plastic, enamel, quartzite, glass, felt, and paper -- and we won't even begin to talk about finishes.

Each of these attracted me for different reasons.

Dupont's religious medal has an almost architectural feel. The framework is of a style often seen in cathedrals framing the dais where the altar is. (There's a name for it, but I can't remember what it is.) This framework protects and displays the Madonna and her Child. The huge circular background with barren tree limbs evokes a sense of the awesome stained glass windows ("rose windows") you also often see, particularly in French cathedrals. The tree itself adds an air of mystery and part of that mystery is the Child who defeats the death of sin with New Life. The reverse continues this theme in a different fashion, with the symbols of God's majesty illuminated with brilliance and enwreathed in victory. Folks, this is Art telling a Story!!!

The Vin d'Arbois medal captures a playful spirit -- one at the same time demure, shameless, and harboring a secret revealed by a smile ready to bubble up into her eyes the moment she looks up at you. In short, the kind of Demeter you'd like to wake up with in the morning as your lover. The medal's texture and irregular edge invoke the beginning of modernism, while it still held influences of art nouveau and art deco -- and before it got ugly.

The Henri IV medal powerfully invokes the 18th & 19th centuries' fascination with the classical. It was popular to place a patron's image on the hero of such a glorious illustration. (And there's that BBL Sphinx that the Boz likes so much! The obverse actually makes Henri IV look distinguished (rather than weaselly). The reverse, however, holds such powerful, active imagery; it looks like a real battle between mythical figures.

The first time I ever saw this Geerts medal many years ago, I always hoped I'd snare one some day. I've only seen one other before this -- and it sold in spirited bidding for something like ten times what I just paid for this one. As a boy, I was fond of dinosaurs and extinct mammals -- like most boys are -- and this medal holds for me the perfect image of 19th century beauty and appreciation of the "new sciences." You know -- the kind of period you expect an Edgar Rice Burroughs or A. Merritt to write about or perhaps an Indiana Jones to actually live in. Ah, when science was still romantic!

Devreese was one of those rare medalists who could readily capture vibrant motion and emotion in his work. Phenomenally with this plaquette, he captures it in a sort of modernist style. It's often tough to capture such vibrancy with a realistic image, but he somehow manages to do it with an image seen as if through running water.