Choice to wear crowns in royal portraits

pendragon1998

I was just wondering: why have some British monarchs choosen to wear their crowns in their portraits on British coins, while others do not? Can someone cast any light on this?

lordmarcovan

A good question, to which I do not know the answer.

In other words, I don't know if there is some tradition or symbolism behind the wearing of a crown or lack thereof, when it comes to coin portraits.

Dentuck

It might be a limitation of the small canvas the designer has to work with. A crown or tiara doesn't always take up a lot of vertical space (the coins of Elizabeth II prove that), but it has that potential. It would be interesting to do a study of headwear-vs.-no-headwear over the centuries, and across nations.... do coined monarchs tend to wear their crowns during times of war, for example? (Ever notice how Kaiser Wilhelm II and other European kings started wearing military uniforms on their circulating coinage shortly before WWI?)

Sapyx

I think it has more to do with the artistic ideas and opinions of the designers of the coinage at that particular time, rather than any government policy or top-down directive from the monarch.

Monarchs who reigned for a long period often saw changes in the crown on the portraiture. This has more to do with aesthetics than policy. They picked the design that looked best.

And it wasn't always consistent at any given time. Britain's George V, for example, is almost always shown crowned on coins of the dominions and colonies, but is uncrowned on the coins of Great Britain itself. I don't think this fact was supposed to convey any symbolism or secret message, it's just what the coin designers of the day from each of those countries chose to use on their coinages.

CaptHenway

I think the rule is that the monarch can do whatever he/she wants to do!!!!!!



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Mel Brooks