MORTON AND EDEN RENAISSANCE MEDALS, PART III

"Our next sale (on 30 April) includes part 3 (the final part) of the collection formed by the late John R Gaines of Lexington, Kentucky, of Medals and Plaquettes, mainly of the Renaissance period. The catalogue includes a forward about Mr Gaines (who died in early 2005).

"This sale follows on from the two sales of medals and plaquettes that we held in 2005 which together achieved just over £1.6 million (about $3 million then). We expect the forthcoming sale to realise a further £200-300,000 making it the most valuable collection of renaissance medals and plaquettes to be sold at auction.

"Highlights include lots 1 and 4, both medals by Pisanello, lot 7, the medal of Isotta the mistress of Sigismondo Malatesta, and lot 19, the beautiful medal of Ippolita Gonzaga by Leone Leoni.

"French medals by Guillaume Dupré are of special note, in particular lots 40, 50, and 57, all monumental uniface portraits in outstanding condition and very rare.

"Gaines's single German medal, lot 70, is a great rarity by Hans Schwarz, of the painter and illustrator Hans Burgkmair the Elder, dated 1518.

"His plaquettes include an Entombment by the famous sculptor Riccio, lot 96."

"I first became a collector by temperament and inclination; I then became a collector by choice and through knowledge; I am now a collector through love and inner necessity." —John R. Gaines, Preface to the Sotheby's sale of his collection of drawings, 1986

Leon Battista Alberti's notion that "a man can do all things if he will" defines the essence of the Renaissance man: one who is driven by curiosity, versatility and creativity. It is also an apt description of John Gaines: a clear-eyed businessman, analytical geneticist, visionary, collector, and philanthropist who endowed the Gaines Center for the Humanities at the University of Kentucky, once served on the Trustees' Council of the National Gallery of Art and has been inducted into the Horse Racing Hall of Fame.

Gaines held a somewhat unusual pair of university degrees; one in English, the other in genetics: humanist and scientist. The latter informed his thinking and strategy as a thoroughbred horse breeder, in which his successes were legendary. His vision for horse racing was revolutionary and his creation in 1982 of the annual Breeder's Cup, has become, as he hoped, the greatest horse-racing event in the world, where champions race champions. And in designing the winner's trophy for the Breeder's Cup, John Gaines, the humanist, revealed himself. For the model he chose the remarkable écorché bronze of a trotting horse by the Mannerist sculptor Giambologna.

As John Gaines himself admitted he was a dedicated, if not addicted collector, a self-professed "acolyte at the altar of beauty". During his long career as a collector, he focused on the finest, whether it be a great ancient Roman bronze or sixteenth century tapestries, and his crowning achievement must be his collection of Master Drawings, which included works by Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, D ürer, Rembrandt, Seurat, van Gogh and Picasso, to name a few. When sold in 1986 these works brought unprecedented prices, and many ultimately found their way into important museum collections.

Toward the end of his life, it was with the same passion that John Gaines began collecting Renaissance medals and plaquettes. His focus, as ever, was on beauty not quantity. Shortly following his death, in 2005 Morton & Eden sold the first two portions of his collection, for what were then record prices. A number of the highlights in those sales entered the two other great collections of medals then being formed in the USA, those of Stephen K. Scher and Lawrence R. Stack, as well as the Mario Scaglia collection in Italy, now in the Carrara Institute, Bergamo.

The contents of this sale represent the third and final portion of the John R. Gaines collection, which, in addition to a further group of mainly Italian medals and plaquettes, contains a particularly rich section of the works of Guillaume Dupré, as exemplified by the cover illustration of this catalogue.