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首席收藏网 > 数据中心 > Stack's Bowers and Ponterio > SBP2018年3月巴尔地摩#1-美国钱币Dobbins集藏

Lot:516 1892-1893年哥伦比亚世界博览会奖章 近未流通

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USD 25000

SBP2018年3月巴尔地摩#1-美国钱币Dobbins集藏

2018-03-21 23:00:00

2018-03-22 03:00:00

近未流通

USD 45600

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1892-1893年哥伦比亚世界博览会奖章 近未流通

1892-1893 World's Columbian Exposition Award Medal With Rejected Reverse Design. Bronze. 102.0mm (approx. 4"), 309.94 grams, 5.3-7.3mm thick. By Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Baxter-86, Dryfhout-151, Musee des Augustins-116. Gem Mint State.

A very high quality, fine casting in bronze of the World's Columbian Expo Medal as Saint-Gaudens intended it, save for some minor artistic modifications that he would have made if given the opportunity. We refer interested clients to Michael Moran's masterful 2008 work Striking Change: The Great Artistic Collaboration of Theodore Roosevelt and Augustus Saint-Gaudens, which encapsulates in a couple chapters the saga of the creation of this Expo's award medal, mandated by an Act of Congress. In a nutshell, the great sculptor August Saint-Gaudens, though without the time or attention to devote to this important commission, took it on anyway to keep it out of the hands of the US Mint's Charles Barber, who Saint-Gaudens did not feel was skilled enough to take on a project of such international significance; put in perspective, 27 million visitors attended the Expo, open from May 1, 1893 to October 30, 1893, featuring thousands of exhibitors and exhibits from 46 different countries spread among 200 buildings on 600 acres in Chicago.

Saint-Gaudens labored on the obverse and reverse designs amidst pulls on his time, focus and financial resources, culminating in the designs seen on this medal. The obverse shows a standing full length Christopher Columbus, arms outstretched, advancing towards the New World, with 3 male figures and the Pillars of Hercules and motto PLVS VLTRA ("more beyond") in the background, further symbolizing the world that beckoned beyond the Straits of Gibraltar; AVGVSTVS SAINT-GAUDENS FECIT is in minuscule letters around the 6 o'clock position. The world is intimately familiar with this obverse design, as it is the version used on the 20,000 or so award medals that were produced for the Expo awardees. The reverse exhibits a standing, naked youth symbolizing young America, holding a torch in his outstretched right hand, his left hand clutching a trio of laurel wreaths and supporting a tall shield emblazoned with a bald eagle, olive branch and the stars and bars shield, an oak sapling and sculptor's initials ASTG to right, the long Expo inscription to left, the hyphenated date 1892-1893 in Roman numerals below.

This reverse is known only on a handful of medals and progress pieces, as its design was squarely rejected by the United States Senate Quadro-Centennial Committee for its portrayal of a nude youth. At first Saint-Gaudens stood by his designs, refusing to change or compromise, feeling that the artistic community and general public would rally behind him and his designs. By the time Saint-Gaudens offered altered versions covering the male nudity with a drapery and then a fig leaf, the damage had been done, as the Treasury Department, which had final say in the matter, refused these versions too. He tried to enlist the help of the artistic community, its patrons, and the general public in his refusal to change the design, but to no avail. By the time he had decided to submit a wholly new design featuring only inscriptions and the American eagle, the design and production process had moved past him behind the closed doors of back rooms and the US government bureaucracy. In a twist of irony, Saint-Gaudens' greatest fear had come to pass, as Charles Barber was asked to create a design for the reverse of the Expo medal to mate with his Columbus obverse. Saint-Gaudens had been wholly removed from the design and production process, creating the "patchwork" medal that exists by the thousands today.

The various rejected reverse designs survives in drawings, plasters and models, most of which are in museum rather private collections. Though others may exist, this is the only two-sided medal in cast bronze featuring of the iconic first rejected reverse we know of in private hands. It has the same look and overall fabric as the 102mm example in the Musee d'Orsay in Paris, gifted to the Museum by the artist in 1899, one of a trio of different sizes (102mm, 74mm, and 64mm) made for Saint-Gaudens by Parisian medal engraver Ernest Paulin Tasset, who Saint-Gaudens had found through his friend, French sculptor and art critic Paul Bion. The Musee d'Orsay examples all have a sample awarding to a WILLIAMS BRADFORD at the lower left below the Expo inscriptions. Though the current piece is "unawarded," faint vestiges of the tops of WILLIAMS are visible around the bottom of the torch and the word "TO," indicating that this casting was taken from the mold after the awardee's name was mostly effaced. Given its similarity in fabric and sharpness to the Musee d'Orsay specimen, we surmise that this was a piece made also made by Tasset in the 1890s, and remained in France until being brought to the United States earlier this year. Clearly made by a skilled artisan, this specimen features a patina of light golden tan and deeper brown and rings like a bell when lightly tapped on the edge, the mark of a fine cast.

We are not aware of other examples of this medal with rejected reverse in private hands or any that have been offered at auction in recent memory; an inferior quality and smaller (74.1 mm) uniface bronze sand casting of the rejected reverse was sold by Presidential Coin and Antique Company in its June 2010 auction, one of a clearly marked edition of 10 commissioned in 1975 by a Saint-Gaudens descendent from the Buntin Foundry in Sherborn, MA using a plaster model in the family's possession. This double-sided, 102mm fine casting of Saint-Gaudens' medal is the Holy Grail of World's Columbian Exposition numismatics, and is an important piece in numismatic history as it is symbolic of the ongoing chasm between Saint-Gaudens and the US Mint, represented by Barber, that culminated in the great Saint-Gaudens/Roosevelt coinage redesign of 1907.

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