The sale was 100% sold and set a record for an historical medal

A collection of important Renaissance medals formed by leading New York dealer-collector Lawrence R. Stack was sold by specialist auctioneers Morton & Eden in London on December 9 2009.

The sale represented the most important offering of 15th and 16th century medals from Italy, France, Germany and the Low Countries to come onto the market since before the Second World War, when the Rosenheim and Oppenheimer collections were sold by Sotheby’s and Christie’s in 1923 and 1936 respectively.

The Highlight of the sale was a gold medal of Mary Tudor by Jacopo da Trezzo formerly in the Rothschild and Gaines collections and one of only two known. The medal was made in 1554, the year of her marriage to the future Philip II of Spain and was recently on display at the National Gallery, London, as part of the exhibition “Renaissance Faces”.

Below is a summary of the catalog Description:

Lot 136 – JACOPO NIZZOLA DA TREZZO (c. 1514-1589) – SOLD FOR £276,000
Mary Tudor (1516-1558), Queen of England, 1553-1558, gold medal, MARIA I REG ANGL FRANC ET HIB FIDEI DEFENSATRIX (Mary I, Queen of England, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith), bust left, wearing an ornately embroidered gown, a brooch with pendant pearl at the breast, and a cap adorned with jewels, with a veil falling down the back.

A black inventory number R2463 inked on the reverse, some field scratches but a superb contemporary cast, one of only two known in gold.

Any 16th Century gold medal of this stature is a great rarity. The example in the British Museum is thought to have a Spanish provenance and may be one of the pieces sent to Spain by Philip himself. It was lot 184 in Sotheby’s sale of 19 July 1864, when offered as the property of Lt. Gen. John Drummond of Dymock, Gloucestershire, and it re-appeared at Sotheby’s as lot 2 in the sale of coins and medals belonging to Reginald Huth, 8 April 1927. Here it was acquired for the record price of £480 by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths and subsequently donated to the British Museum.

The present example, the only other known in gold, is lighter by some 30g and is very slightly smaller although the quality of the chasing and the manner in which the fields are tooled and the edges cross-filed are virtually identical. In the ‘Renaissance Faces’ catalogue, Luke Syson has written: ‘The two surviving gold specimens were probably intended for Philip himself ….. for his father [Charles V], or indeed for Mary. Even the powerful Granvelle only merited a silver cast….’

Provenance: The late Baroness Batsheva de Rothschild collection, Christie’s, 14th December 2000, lot 36; the inventory number R2463 on the reverse may relate to the Nazi requisitions of 1940-1. Batsheva de Rothschild may have acquired the medal by inheritance and its previous owner was most probably Baron Alphonse de Rothschild (1827-1905) who, it has been suggested, bought it in a lot of twenty-two works of art from the Viennese Habsburgs; The Estate of John R. Gaines, Morton & Eden, 21 April 2005, lot 11; exhibited alongside the other known gold medal of Mary Tudor at the exhibition Renaissance Faces, The National Gallery, London, 15 October 2008-18 January 2009, exhibition catalogue p. 284, 98.

Conventionally known as the ‘State of England’ medal, this was undoubtedly da Trezzo’s masterpiece It was commissioned by Philip in the year of his marriage to Mary and was produced by da Trezzo in London in late 1554. The Queen’s bust shows many affinities to Mary’s painted portrait by Antonis Mor, commissioned by Charles V and completed in November-December 1554

In Mor’s painting Mary is shown in threequarter view but in both the painting and the medal she wears the same pendant jewel, likely to be the one sent to her by Philip in June 1554, before their marriage. That jewel has been described as ‘a great diamond with large pearl pendant, one of the most beautiful pieces ever seen in the world’

Da Trezzo’s actual presence in London in late 1554 suggests that both painter and medallist may have attended the same sitting by the queen. The two artists evidently knew each other and Mor subsequently painted da Trezzo’s portrait

The reverse symbolises the peaceful state of the kingdom and the figure of Peace is said to bear the features of Mary herself. Peace setting fire to arms ultimately derives from Roman coinage and had been used by Cellini in his 1534 medal of Pope Clement VII (Attwood p. 317, fig. 48).

Purchased by U.S. buyer

Other Highlights of the sale include:

Lot 233 ALBRECHT DÜRER (1471-1528) and HANS KRAFFT THE ELDER (1481-1542)
Charles V (1500-1558), Holy Roman Emperor, 1519-1556, struck silver medal dedicated by the City of Nuremberg to the emperor
Sold for £258,750 to a European Collector

Lot 110 ATTRIBUTED TO NICCOLÒ SPINELLI, called NICCOLÒ FIORENTINO (1430-1514)
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494), humanist and philosopher, bronze medal
Sold for £138,000 to a European Dealer

Lot 32 ANTONIO DI PUCCIO, called PISANELLO (c. 1394-1455)
Alfonso V of Aragon, King of Naples and Sicily (1396-1458), bronze medal, dated 1449
Sold for £103,500 Purchased by UK dealer David Miller on behalf of a private collector

Lot 31 ANTONIO DI PUCCIO, called PISANELLO (c. 1394-1455)
Vittorino Rambaldoni da Feltre (1378-1446), bronze medal
Sold for £86,250 to a Private US Collector

Lot 19 LEONE LEONI (c. 1509-1590)
The Triumph of Gianettino Doria guided by Andrea Doria as Neptune, bronze plaquette
Sold for £63,250 to a Private UK Collector

Lot 33 ANTONIO DI PUCCIO, called PISANELLO (c. 1394-1455)
Don Iñigo d’Avalos (died 1484), Master Chamberlain of the kingdom of Naples, bronze medal
Sold for £55,200 to a European Collector

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