Why is the Liberty on the seated Liberty design holding a pole with a cap hanging from it?
fivecents
Posts: 11,207 ✭✭✭✭✭
What is the symbolism?
0
Comments
The cap appears not only on US coins, but anti slavery tokens, Mexican coins...
<< <i>The cap represents a freed slave? >>
No. It represents freedom.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
Rochester Liberty Pole
<< <i>The cap on the pole is symbolic of freedom. Some are under the impression that it goes back to the french revolution, but the symbolism is much older. Based on the Phrygian Cap, of similar shape, which goes back to the Greeks and was also a symbol of liberty. This was an actual cap worn and was also seen as symbolic in Roman times.
The cap appears not only on US coins, but anti slavery tokens, Mexican coins... >>
Correct... even Caligula was fond of poles!
<< <i>Correct... even Caligula was fond of poles! >>
Some people probably think the cap hanging from the pole symbolizes birth control.
How is a 1792 work copywrite protected? That is a long time ago.
<< <i><<Copyright laws prevent me from posting it here, but the Ms. Liberty that is the focus of the painting as many elements of Gobrecht's design. The picture was painted in 1792.>>
How is a 1792 work copywrite protected? That is a long time ago. >>
Didn't Al Gore free us when he invented the internet ?
``https://ebay.us/m/KxolR5
<< <i><<Copyright laws prevent me from posting it here, but the Ms. Liberty that is the focus of the painting as many elements of Gobrecht's design. The picture was painted in 1792.>>
How is a 1792 work copywrite protected? That is a long time ago. >>
I suspect Bill Jones is referring to the copyright of the book that contains a picture of the painting:
David Hackett Fischer. Liberty and Freedom. (America: A Cultural History, number 3.) New York: Oxford University Press. 2005
Since the title includes the words Liberty and Sciences, and it was done in Philadelphia in 1792 at the time when the first coins were being created, it may have been partially inspired by Joseph Wright, who was the designer of the first American coinage that had the motto "Liberty - Parent of Science and Industry".
Joseph Wright was very familiar with the Liberty Cap & Pole design theme, as his mother (Patience) had used the same symbolism in her 1777 picture in defiance of the King of England when she was in London during the Revolutionary War.
Patience Wright had copied the same theme from John Wilkes (political supporter of justice and freedom), of England in his earlier defiance of the King.
The Cap on a Pole element has long been considered a symbol of freedom.
What Copyright laws?
Samuel Jennings, Liberty Displaying the Arts and Sciences, 1792.
Courtesy Library Company of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pa.
<< <i>
<< <i>Correct... even Caligula was fond of poles! >>
Some people probably think the cap hanging from the pole symbolizes birth control.
It's a Jimmy Cap!
The trouble is the image is in a copyrighted book.
<< <i>DuPapa - I'm glad you posted it.
The trouble is the image is in a copyrighted book. >>
i think laws allow forums to show pictures that someone put up
on the internet.... on a public internet.... ;-)
interesting painting. i never saw it before.
<<In the United States, all books and other works published before 1923 have expired copyrights and are in the public domain. >>
The designer of the Seated Liberty coinage was Howard Hughes, he was the son of Philomena Gobrecht and Aaron Burr and was the greatest American artist nobody ever heard of. Hughes trained at the prestigious Kincaid School of Art and the Kensington Art School and Flea Market (near Silver Spring, Maryland). He accidentally matriculated at L’Ecole Fantastique de Paris but was permitted to leave if he omitted this from his resume. His paintings were never signed but he used a private mark of a Goose and a sprig of Spruce tree as his signature.
Anyway, the model he used for Miss Liberty was an Irish girl named Mary Cunningham. (Mary would later find fame as the model for the 1859 “Indian” cent and the new 1907 $20 gold coin designed by Walt Disney. To many, Mary seemed eternally youthful.) One rainy afternoon, Mary came in, rather tired from long hours in her regular job as a bar maid. It had been raining (did I mention that?) and her cap and hair were soaked. Her feet were wet too and smelled from the barnyard. While waiting for Hughes to get his paint together, Mary grabbed a walking stick from the corner and hung her hat on it to dry by the fire. She also kicked off her shoes and put her feet up on a bail of cotton that Hughes had lying about.
The artist was so taken with the casual yet elegant pose, that he quickly sketched the scene on canvass. Later, Hughes made a few minor changes such as moving Mary’s rather large feet to a less prominent position and adding a small thatched-roof cottage with bright yellow light coming from its windows in the background. (This was later removed by Mint engraver Eleanor Roosevelt.)
Everyone thought the seated liberty with cap on pole so simple and stylish that a popular fad started. Everywhere, people carried their hats on a pole instead of wearing them on their heads. The fad lasted eleven hours before the public grew tired of the constant advertising. Eventually Hughes used a bust of Mary on his half-cent and cent designs of 1793/1794, but that was before he was born….he was very precocious.
So...there you have the real story - more or less.
(Transcribed from Amrcn Nmsmtc Hstr 2nd edition, 3118 AD.)
[Edited to remove the naughty bits.]
Also looking for VF-EF Seated halves.
Sell me your old auction catalogs...
..............then it isn't an example of an early football helmet?