NEW BOOK: EUROPEAN MEDALS IN THE CHAZEN MUSEUM

PREV ARTICLE NEXT ARTICLE FULL ISSUE PREV FULL ISSUE

V17 2014 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 17, Number 41, October 5, 2014, Article 5

Tom Garver put me in touch with Maria Saffiotti Dale of the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The Museum recently published a catalogue of medals that may interest many E-Sylum readers. Thanks! -Editor

European Medals in the Chazen Museum of Art
Highlights from the Vernon Hall Collection and Later Acquisitions

Introductory Essay by Stephen K. Scher
Contributors: Philip Attwood, Arne R. Flaten, Mark Jones, Douglas Lewis, Eleonora Luciano, Joseph G. Reinis, Stephen K. Scher, Jeffrey Chipps Smith, Louis A. Waldman

Edited by Maria F.P. Saffiotti Dale
Softcover, illus. 28 B&W, 124 color
205 pages
$39.95, plus postage
ISBN: 978-1-93327-017-3

This grouping of medals represents the museum’s Renaissance, Baroque, and nineteenth-century highlights and illustrates the history of the art of the commemorative medal. This catalogue incorporates the scholarship of nine international medallic experts. Their erudition, consummate research skills, and effective prose are evident in sixty-one essays on some of the masterpieces of this art form written for the education and enjoyment of students, specialists, and the general public alike.

"While the medals range from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries, examples from the Renaissance and Baroque periods constitute the strength of the museum’s holdings. Of exceptional quality and rarity are five contemporaneous casts of Italian fifteenth-century medals, four by the painter and medalist Pisanello and one by Matteo de’Pasti. Other important Italian Renaissance medals include contemporaneous or early casts by Amadio da Milano, Giulio della Torre, and Andrea Cambi, called Bombarda. The Hall collection also includes important holdings in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century French medals, notable among which are the portrait medals of Louis XII and Anne de Bretagne by Nicolas Leclerc and Jean de Saint-Priest, as well as several major casts by Guillaume Dupré depicting the French kings Henry IV and Louis XIII. In addition, the collection possesses some fine examples of German and Netherlandish portrait medals, particularly those by Hans Reinhart the Elder and Coenraad Bloc."

In addition to an introductory essay by Stephen K. Scher, "The Development of the Commemorative Medal: The Fifteenth to the Nineteenth Centuries," and 61 entries with medallists' biographies authored by nine experts in the field, this catalogue includes an extensive bibliography, an index of legends, and a general index. An illustrated Handlist of the remaining 240 medals in the Vernon Hall Collection with accompanying Concordances (which will allow the reader to correlate Chazen Museum accession numbers, the 1978 Hall catalogue numbers, and the new catalogue numbers for all 302 medals) will be published in digital format in the future and will be accessible through the museum's website.

Philip Attwood, Keeper of the Department of Coins and Medals at The British Museum, is the author of Italian Medals c. 1530–1600 in British Public Collections.

Arne R. Flaten, Professor of Art History and Chair of Visual Arts at Coastal Carolina University, is author of Medals and Plaquettes in the Ulrich Middeldorf Collection at the Indiana University Art Museum 15th to 20th Centuries.

Mark Jones was Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum from 2001 to 2011 and as Curator in the Department of Coins and Medals at The British Museum authored A Catalogue of the French Medals in the British Museum.

Douglas Lewis was Curator of Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the National Gallery of Art for thirty-six years before his retirement in 2004 and has written extensively on Italian Renaissance and Baroque medals and plaquettes.

Eleonora Luciano is Associate Curator of Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the National Gallery of Art, where she contributed to the Systematic Catalogue of Renaissance Medals and has published on Italian Renaissance sculpture.

Joseph G. Reinis, Associate Curator, The Mossman Lock Collection, scholar, collector, and writer on nineteenth-century sculpture, is the author of the definitive catalogue raisonné The Portrait Medallions of David d’Angers.

Stephen K. Scher, medallic scholar and collector, curated the 1994 exhibition The Currency of Fame: Portrait Medals of the Renaissance at The Frick Collection and at the National Gallery of Art, and has edited and contributed to its accompanying catalogue.

Jeffrey Chipps Smith, Kay Fortson Chair in European Art in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at Austin, has published widely on German Renaissance art.

Louis A. Waldman, Associate Professor in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at Austin, has written extensively on Italian fifteenth- and sixteenth-century painting and sculpture.

I hope this gives you and your readers enough information to whet your appetites to purchase this publication and to recommend it to fellow medals collectors, scholars, and enthusiasts. With a the print run of 500 copies, I encourage your readers to order the book online as soon as possible at the Chazen Museum Shop website.

The Chazen's permanent collection is searchable online through the museum website. Of particular interest to medals collectors are two notable collections: The Vernon Hall Collection, and The Andrew Laurie Stangel Collection of mostly German medals from Bismark to WWII, as well as papal medals.

To view the Vernon Hall Collection, see:
Vernon Hall Collection (embarkkiosk.chazen.wisc.edu/PRT526?sid=13871&x=296638&x=296639)

To view the Andrew Laurie Stangel Collection, see:
Andrew Laurie Stangel Collection (embarkkiosk.chazen.wisc.edu/PRT528?sid=13871&x=296654&x=296655)