WHICH NAPOLEONIC MEDALS DID PEALE SEE?

FINALLY!!! I've been trying for years to figure out which Napoleonic medals Franklin Peale saw being made at the Paris mint in 1833/34. He mentions them in his 1835 Mint report and, if I recall, in a letter back to Moore, but it's just an off-hand comment about the Paris mint striking a large run of Napoleonic medals (I have to re-find the exact quote).

Everyone I've asked for years has responded that it would be nearly impossible to tell since the French frequently struck and restruck all sorts of Napoleonic medals.

Anyway, I met Bill Goetz, who specializes in French medals and coinage, at the Baltimore show and he suggested the Arc de Triomphe series. That proved to be a no-go as the dates were a little later. However, that lead me to Mssr. Nicolas Guy Antoine Brenet, who did quite a bit of work for the French mints, including a series of 20 Napoleonic medals which were exhibited at the 1833 Paris Salon (see PDF).

Then I found a set of 26 gilt bronze Napoleonic medals by Brenet in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art (see photos). I've emailed Dr. Thayer Tolles of The Met and Bill to see if we can ID the 1833 Paris Salon pieces and get more info on the gilt set. That's probably a gift or diplomatic set. The "extra" pieces may be earlier or later medals by Brenet as he did exhibit at several Paris Salons. Or he may simply have chosen 20 of the pieces for exhibit and the 6 "extras" simply represent the full range being struck.

Either way, we finally have a solid view of what Peale saw and yet another object lesson in why it pays to keep digging even when everyone else thinks you're chasing the impossible. Plus, I got another cool set to collect.

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