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Description: | There are over 3,000 historical medals in the University of Glasgow's Hunterian Museum. The majority of these still belong to the cabinet put together by Doctor William Hunter between 1770 and 1783.
Hunter kept an account book of his purchases and this provides some useful information on sources and prices as well as on his collecting methods. The earliest reference to medals is the purchase of -Pretender's family med(als) fr(om) Rome for £2.11.6 from Fernando Hamerani in August 1771. Two years later a Mr Shiells received £8.18.6 for a gold medal which the receipt shows to be of -Chas. II and the Queen. May 1774 saw the purchase of -Three Cardinals for £2.4.0 while in May the following year Five Popes came somewhat cheaper at 15/6. In July 1778 Hunter paid 12/- for -Kirk's Lord Chatham. A -Sir Christopher Wren cost £2.16.6 in 1780, the last year a mention of medals occurs.
Just over half of Hunter's own medals are of the British historical series. Of the remainder approximately half again are Papal medals, a quarter French and the rest miscellaneous European including a small group of Italian Renaissance medals.
The group of just ten Renaissance medals from Italy suggests Hunter did not specifically collect this series. Three of the group are by Pisanello, including one of the Emperor John VIII Palaeologus. Of greater rarity is Francesco Laurana's 1464 piece featuring Ferry II of Lorraine.
The largest part of Hunter's historical medals comprise just under 1,000 specimens from the British series. It is perhaps appropriate that the earliest is one of the gold medals commemorating John, Duke of Albany giving up the regency of Scotland in 1524 on the return of James V from England. It is said to be made of Scottish gold mined on Crawford Moor. The latest medal is one concerning the acquittal of Lord George Gordon in 1781.
There are somewhat less than a hundred 16th century pieces of which the earliest English are the gold medal issued in 1545 proclaiming Henry VIII's supremacy over the Church and Edward VI's coronation medal of 1547. Just over half of Hunter's specimens of this century are of Elizabeth I. Of Scottish interest are two varieties of the silver medal of 1590 alluding to the marriage of James VI to Anne of Denmark.
The collection contains approximately 500 17th century medals of which two thirds belong to the post-Restoration period. Among those of James I/VI are a silver medal said to depict Lady Arabella Stuart and a splendid gold badge of the King himself. Included among the hundred medals of Charles I is one of the four known 1632 Lord and Lady Baltimore medals and one of the three known specimens in gold of the King's Scottish coronation at Scone in 1633.
The Commonwealth interlude is represented by only some three dozen specimens, among them the unique medal commemorating the execution of the Marquis of Montrose in 1650.
The restoration in 1660 heralded a great increase in medal production reflected in the large numbers of those of Charles II and William and Mary in Hunter's cabinet. Many from the latter reign refer to William's campaigns in Ireland and on the Continent.
The 18th century is represented by 400 specimens from the time of Queen Anne to the end of the second decade of George III's reign. One of these is a lead model of a medal of William Hunter himself made about 1783 but not subsequently produced.
Among the foreign medals in the Hunterian cabinet the Papal series is best represented. Few, if any, of the two dozen medals depicting fifteenth-century popes are contemporary. The latest is one of Pope Pius VI depicting the closing of the Holy Door in the Jubilee Year of 1775. The rest of Europe is represented by approximately 400 medals mostly of the 17th and 18th centuries. A quarter of these are of French origin, the rest Italian, German, Russian and Swedish.
Few medals were added during the 19th and early 20th century but in the last twenty years a significant collection of Scottish historical, prize and art medals struck from 1800 to the present has been acquired. | Subjects: | Numismatics | Source: | Hunterian Museum | Address: | University of Glasgow,
University Avenue,
G12 8QQ | Creator: | J.D. Bateson | Contributor: | William Hunter; Various | Identifier: | C-0063 |
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