Coronation Medal of King George IV
Benedetto Pistrucci (Rome 1783 - Windsor 1855)
Category
Coins and medals
Date
1821
Materials
Gold
Measurements
35.2 mm (Diameter)
Place of origin
London
Order this imageCollection
Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire
NT 517662.3
Summary
Gold, King George IV (1762-1830), Benedetto Pistrucci (1783-1855), 1821. A gold medal by Benedetto Pistrucci, commemorating the Coronation of King George IV (1762-1830, reigned 1820-30), which took place on 19 July 1821. The obverse has a profile portrait of the king facing left, wearing a laurel wreath, with the legend translated as ‘George IV, by the Grace of God King of Great Britain’. On the reverse is George IV enthroned, facing left, being crowned by Victory. Before him stand female allegorical figures representing Britannia, Hibernia (Ireland) and Scotia. The legend translated as ‘Now in his own right, with his father’s mind’ and, in the exergue, ‘Inaugurated 19 July 1821’. Mounted in a frame with ten other medals and tokens commemorating and celebrating King George IV (1762-1830, reigned 1820-30) (NT 517662).
Full description
After ten years as Prince Regent, George IV finally acceded to the throne of the United Kingdom and Ireland in 1820, at the age of 57. George’s early popularity had long been forfeited as a result of his dissolute and extravagant lifestyle, as well as his treatment of his consort Queen Caroline. Caroline returned from the Continent for the Coronation, but was deliberately excluded from the ceremony by her estranged husband; she died just two weeks later, on 7 August, claiming that she had been poisoned. The Coronation ceremony, held in Westminster Abbey on 19 July 1821, was notable for its magnificence and extravagance. The ceremony in the Abbey lasted five hours and at several points the King seemed to be on the point of fainting, as a result of the heat and the great weight of his robes. It was followed by a banquet in Westminster Hall for 300 guests, at which the medieval ceremony of the Entry of the King’s Champion was enacted for the last time at any coronation of a British monarch (see NT 517662.2). In the account of the Coronation in the Gentleman’s Magazine, it is stated that ‘The Treasurer of His Majesty’s Household threw about the medals of the Coronation’; these must have been Pistrucci’s official medal. Benedetto Pistrucci was one of the most brilliant gem engravers of the first half of the nineteenth century. Born in Rome, following a short period in Paris, he arrived in 1814 in London, where he quickly found important new patrons, including William Wellesley-Pole, Master of the Royal Mint. Pistrucci caused a stir in London, by claiming that a cameo with the head of Flora, bought by the connoisseur Richard Payne Knight as a rare Roman antiquity, was in fact his work. In 1816, Pistrucci began to work at the Royal Mint on new designs for gold and silver coinage, including his famous reverse of Saint George and the Dragon, created for the new gold sovereign of 1817, and still in use for special coin editions to this day. On the death of Thomas Wyon in September 1817, Pistrucci became in effect Chief Engraver although, as an alien, he was not permitted officially to hold the title. The commission for the Coronation medal followed that for his most ambitious medallic project, the Waterloo Medal (Brown 1980, no. 870; Eimer 2010, no. 1067). Pistrucci’s models in wax for both the obverse and the reverse are in the Museo della Zecca di Roma, in Rome (Pirzio Biroli Stefanelli 1989, I, pp. 107-09, nos. 51-52.) When the proofs of the Coronation medal were shown to the committee of the Privy Council responsible for the commission, they were rejected, because the reverse at proof stage showed the monarch placed at the same level as the three allegorical figures of Britain, Ireland and Scotland. The wax model of the reverse indeed shows the throne on the same level as the standing figures. Rather than re-engraving an entire new die, Pistrucci is said to have stated ‘I shall elevate His Majesty’, dividing the existing block of steel in two and altering their relative positions, which allowed him to engrave a platform beneath the king’s throne to create a dais. As well as fine copies such as the present example, the medal was copied by E. Avern, it seems to the order of the Duke of Buckingham, for presentation to members of his Buckinghamshire Yeomanry (Brown 1980, no. 1071). The group of medals of George IV collected by Lord Fairhaven includes further examples of Pistrucci’s Coronation medal, in silver and in bronze (NT 517662.7 and 517662.6), as well as an example of the Coronation medal published by Thomason and Jones (NT 517662.1) and another of the King’s Champion’s medal by George Mills (NT 517662.2) . Jeremy Warren, 2020
Provenance
Bequeathed to the National Trust by Huttleston Rogers Broughton, 1st Lord Fairhaven (1896-1966) with the house and the rest of the contents in 1966.
Credit line
National Trust Collections (Anglesey Abbey, The Fairhaven Collection)
Marks and inscriptions
Obverse: Legend: GEORGIUS IIII D . G . BRITANNIARUM REX F . D. Artist’s signature, below truncation: B.P. Reverse: Legend: PROPRIO JAM JURE ANIMO PATERNO. In exergue: INAUGURATUS / DIE . JULII . XIX /ANNO . MDCCCXXI.
Makers and roles
Benedetto Pistrucci (Rome 1783 - Windsor 1855), medallist
References
Brown 1980: Laurence Brown, A catalogue of British historical medals 1760-1960, Vol.I. The accession of George III to the death of William IV, London 1980, p. 264, no. 1070 Stefanelli 1989: Lucia Pirzio Biroli Stefanelli, I Modelli in Cera di Bendetto Pistrucci, 2 vols, Rome 1989, Vol I, p. 33, no. 2; pp. 107-08 Marsh 1998: Michael A. Marsh, Benedetto Pistrucci. Principal Engraver and Chief Medallist of the Royal Mint 1783-1855, Hardwick 1998, pp. 26-27, Pl. 14 Mitchiner 1988-2007: Michael Mitchiner, Jetons, Medalets and Tokens, 4 vols., London 1988-2007, p. 2107, no. 107.1 (6470) Eimer 2010: Christopher Eimer, British Commemorative Medals and their Values, London 2010, p. 161, no. 1146, Pl. 125