Commemorative medallion
Wedgwood
Category
Objets de vertu
Date
Unknown
Materials
Ceramic
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Shugborough Estate, Staffordshire
NT 1271472.2
Summary
One of two Commemorative Wedgwood Medallions, 1) black medallion commemorating Admiral Anson's voyage round World 1740-44 and victory over French, May 1747. Obverse has a Victory with wreath above classical profile, reverse showing Victory above a sea lion. 2) in blue with white profile. Among the correspondence between the Earl of Lichfield and Frank Wedgwood at the Stafford Record Office (Shugborough MSS, D/615/P(A)/14), is a letter dated 29 April 1909, where Wedgwood describes the results of a recent project reproduce in jasper and black basalt a 1747 coin owned by the Earl: the ‘copy of a bronze medallion of Admiral Anson in a small Black Medallion and in Pale blue which will show you that we have made use of the Bronze and also how great in the case of the Black is the shrinkage in the size. The blue shows through the Admirals nose where the white is, so I am making another, which I hope will not show’.
Marks and inscriptions
George Lord Anson VICT MAY III MDCCXLVII (on obverse, with the legend 'Circumnavigation' and names of naval captains in wreaths)
Makers and roles
Wedgwood Thomas Pingo the elder (1692-1776), medallist