| Coin Designers and Engravers |
After over a thousand years and many changes in production
techniques, the monarch continues to be depicted on the obverse of modern coinage. Certain
traditions are observed in this representation. From the time of Charles II onwards a
tradition developed of successive monarchs being represented on the coinage facing in the
opposite direction to their immediate predecessor. There was an exception to this in the
brief reign of Edward VIII, who liked portraits of himself facing to the left, even though
he should have faced to the right according to tradition. The designs for proposed coins in
the Mint collection show Edward VIII facing to the left. The tradition has been restored
since the reign of George VI.
The following are very brief biographies of some of the engravers and artists who have
designed Commonwealth coinage over the last few hundred years.
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Initials
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Engraver
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| W.W. |
William Wyon |
| B.P |
Benedetto Pistrucci |
| DeS |
George William de Saulles |
| HP |
Thomas Humphrey Paget |
| J.E.B. |
Sir Joseph Edward Boehm |
| K G |
George Kruger Gray |
| T.B. |
Sir Thomas Brock |
| BM |
Sir Edgar Bertram MacKennal |
| MG |
Mary Gillick |
| AM |
Arnold Machin |
| RBM |
Raphael Maklouf |
| S.D |
Stuart Devlin |
| I.R.B |
Ian Rank-Broadley |
| WP |
Wojciech Pietranik |
| TN |
Timothy Noad |
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If the many thousands of coin collectors in the United Kingdom were asked
to nominate the three finest engravers ever to produce designs for the home coinage it is
likely that William Wyon would find a place on everyone's list. In his prolific output
between 1816 and 1851 there is much to admire: the Three Graces pattern crown of 1817, the
seated Britannia of the 1820s, the Lion sixpence and shillings of George IV, and a regal
Una and the Lion on the famous fivepound piece of 1839. These are, all of them, designs of
charm and distinction, but they do not by themselves explain why Wyon's contemporaries,
who elected him to the Royal Academy, held him in high regard nor why modern numismatists
cherish his memory with such affection. His enduring reputation rests rather on his coin
and medal portraits of Queen Victoria. |
| They begin early, for the Queen first sat for him as a young
Princess of thirteen and he produced a medallic portrait for her eighteenth birthday. This
was followed by a portrait in lower relief for the new Queen's coins, which began to
find their way into circulation in the summer of 1838, and by a diademed portrait for a
medal commemorating the Queen's visit to the City of London in November 1837, a
portrait better remembered now as that used for the Penny Black stamps of 1840. In 1847
came a crowned bust in fashionable Gothic style, adopted for the proof crowns of that year
and, later, for the controversial florins of 1849. |
| About the same time another diademed portrait was prepared for campaign and
general service medals, and finally, shortly before his death, he completed conjoint
portraits of the Queen and the Prince Consort for Great Exhibition medals of 1851. Of these
portraits, that approved for the coinage in 1838 undoubtedly takes pride of place. Wyon was
clearly inspired by his admiration of the neo-classical style of his mentor Flaxman to
create an uncluttered and well balanced portrait. Now familiarly known as the Young Head,
its beautiful features flattered the Queen, who was a grandmother in her late sixties
before she allowed it to disappear from the coinage. "You always represent me
favourably", she is reported to have told Wyon, while he, for his part, is said to
have found the Queen an excellent sitter. His skill in portraiture was not of course
restricted to representations of Queen Victoria. He it was who engraved coinage portraits
of George IV and William IV, though these were not entirely his own work since they were
based on busts by the sculptor Chantrey. |
Image Courtesy Spink UK |
Many medallic Portraits, both private and official, also
testify to his genius and his head of Queen Adelaide for the Coronation Medial of 1811 was
additionally remarkable for the unaccustomed speed with which it was finished So
established was his reputation that he was commissioned to prepare a portrait of Queen
Maria II for the coinage of Portugal, not the easiest of tasks if the Queen really was as
plain as William IV ungallantly insisted. It seems scarcely credible, given the precocity
of his talent, that there should ever have been doubts about his ability and that a Master
of the Mint, no less, should have advised him not to waste his time attempting to do heads.
Perhaps these doubts were created by a modesty of manner so unlike the egotistical
assertiveness of his great rival Benedetto Pisirucci but, whatever their cause, they were
quickly dispelled by an output of coins and medals that remains truly remarkable.
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J E Boehm's Wax of the Jubilee Portrait of Queen Victoria
Image Courtesy Spink UK |
Born in Vienna, of Hungarian descent, the son of the director of the Vienna
mint, in 1834. Came to London 1848 and studied for 3 years, mainly in British Museum; then
studied in Italy, Paris, and Vienna. In 1856 Boehm was presented with the Austrian Imperial
Prize for Sculpture, the start of his distinguished career. He came to live in England in
1862, and was granted citizenship in 1865. He became a member of the ARA in 1878, and was
elected to the Royal Academy in 1882. A speciality of his was the portrait bust many
examples of which are in the National Portrait Gallery. He received constant flow of
commissions for public monuments, portrait statues and busts; he also became Sculptor in
Ordinary to Queen Victoria. Besides public commissions, he also executed imaginative works.
He later became lecturer on sculpture at the Royal Academy and member of several foreign
academies .
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During his career he was commissioned frequently by the Royal Family and
members of the aristocracy to sculpt for their parks and gardens. His most important works
include 'St George and the Dragon', which can be found outside the State Library of
Victoria.
Other works include: Wellington Memorial, Hyde Park Corner; Lord Beaconsfield and Dean
Stanley in Westminster Abbey; Carlyle on Chelsea Embankment; recumbent figure of
Archlzishop Tait, Canterbury Cathedral. Executed stone figure of Queen Victoria and the
Prince of Wales on Temple Bar Memorial, Fleet St., 1880, for which C. B. Birch modelled the
"Griffin". Executed portrait head of Queen Victoria for 1887 coinage.
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J E Boehm's statue of St George slaying the Dragon in Melbourne , Australia. |
Boehm with Princess Louise; about 1885. |
His most famous pupil was the Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll daughter
of Queen Victoria. Princess Louise was at his house, 76 Fulham Road, London, when Boehm
died suddenly on 12 December 1890, provoking press speculation about an unsubstantiated
sexual relationship between the two.
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Sir Thomas Brock, 1847-1922, Photographed by R W Robertson c.1887 |
The sculptor Thomas Brock was born in Worcester, and studied at the Royal
Academy Schools from 1867. He had previously worked in the studio of the sculptor J. H.
Foley, and when that artist died, Brock completed many of his unfinished commissions. This
gave him a smooth route into respectability. He became ARA in 1883 and RA in 1891and was
knighted in 1911. His bust of Longfellow (Westminster Abbey); his colossal Victoria
Memorial, in front of Buckingham Palace; and his equestrian statue, Black Prince
(Leeds), are notable examples of his work.
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Sir Edgar Bertram Mackennal (1863 - 1931) was born in
Melbourne, Australia. His father was an architectural sculptor and it was under him that
Mackennal first studied. He later studied at the Melbourne School of Art and went to
England to study the antique at the British Museum in 1883. The following year he entered
the Royal Academy Schools, but the teaching did not prove agreeable to him, and he soon
left, to go to Paris. There, still aged only 19, he set up his own studio, while continuing
his studies with visits to the workshops of a variety of eminent sculptors.
Back in England Mackennal became head of the art department of the Coalport Potteries in
Shropshire. However, in 1887 he won a competition to provide relief carvings for the
Victoria State houses of Parliament, and he spent two years back in Australia working on
this commission. After rather mixed success, he achieved fame with his statue
Circe in 1893. By this time he was back in London, and it was there that he
settled, becoming one of the more important sculptors of his time.
Sir Edgar Bertram Mackennal was not only the first Australian artist to be knighted - he
was created MVO (Member of the Royal Victorian Order) in 1912 and KCVO (Knight Commander of
the Royal Victorian Order) in 1921 - but he was the first and only Australian sculptor ever
to be made a full member of the Royal Academy, being elected ARA in 1909 and RA in
1922.
Among Mackennal's many commissions in England are a number of war memorials, including
the Islington commemoration of the South African War (1903) and the First World War
memorials at Eton College, and in the Houses of Parliament, Westminster (which is dedicated
to British MPs who had died in that war). Also, he designed a plaque in Amiens Cathedral in
memory of the Australian dead in the Great War. His only war memorial in Australia is The
Cenotaph, in Martin Place, Sydney. However, while in Australia on his 1926-27 visit, he was
commissioned to complete the Desert Mounted Corps memorial for Port Said, which was left
unfinished by the untimely death of Web Gilbert in 1925. Apparently Mackennal worked on
this memorial while in Sydney , but he completed the plaster, in London, only a few days
before he himself died. The bronze cast was made posthumously.
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Mary Gillick was born in Nottingham in 1881 and was educated at
the Nottingham High School for Girls from 1890 to 1898. She studied at the Nottingham
School of Art until 1902 and was a scholar under Lanteri at the Royal College of Art from
1902 to 1904. It was in Nottingham that she met her future husband, Ernest Gillick, whose
high standards and searching criticism did much to influence her and formed the basis of an
ideal working partnership which lasted some forty-six years, She produced a number of
medals presented on occasion by learned societies and other institutions, notably the Royal
Society, the Institute of Physics, and the Royal Academy Schools.
In 1952 she produced her first coin portrait when she designed the uncrowned head of the
new Queen for the coinage of the United Kingdom. She was one of seventeen artists who
submitted relief sketches in plaster for the first coin effigy of the new reign, and won
the the competition with an uncrowned, almost informal, portrait of the young Queen
Elizabeth. She chose to avoid the couped effigy of previous monarchs and by placing the
portrait within a continuous inscription she recalled coins of the first Queen Elizabeth.
This charming design appears on all of Australia's & Britain's pre-decimal
coins of Elizabeth II from 1953 to 1967.
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Arnold Machin was born in Stoke-on-Trent in 1911. He studied
sculpture at Stoke-on-Trent Art College and then at Derby where he gained a Royal
Exhibition to the Royal College of Art. While at the College he won a travelling
scholarship, the College Medal and a continuation scholarship. Arnold Machin was elected an
A.R.A. in 1947 and and R.A. in 1956. He has held posts of tutor at the Royal College of
Art, Assessor to the Scottish College of Art, and Master of Sculpture at the Royal Academy
Schools.
His portrait of the Queen adopted for the United Kingdom coinage in 1968, was for him a
first in coin design. Previously his commercial work had been largely associated with the
designs for porcelain, examples of which have been purchased by the Tate Gallery.
In anticipation of the planned new decimal coinage, Arnold Machin was commissioned to
prepare a new coin portrait of the Queen. It was the first time he had worked on a
numismatic design and he was granted four sittings at Buckingham Palace and Balmoral. The
new design was approved in June 1964 but was not used for United Kingdom coinage until
1968, after which his "Decimal Portrait" of Elizabeth II was used on all
Australian & British decimal coins from 1968 through to 1984.
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Raphael Maklouf was born in Jerusalem on 10 December 1937 and
came to the United Kingdom after the Second World War. He began sculpting at the age of
thirteen, during a stay in hospital, and at sixteen became a student at the Camberwell
School of Art, where he remained until 1958. For the next ten years he lectured in
sculpture at a number of schools of art, including Camberwell, and in 1979 was elected an
Associate of the Royal Society of British Sculptors. In 1977 he became a Fellow of the
Royal Society of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and
Commerce. His work has been exhibited widely both at home and abroad, including the Royal
Academy in London.
For Raphael Maklouf too, his effigy of Her Majesty the Queen approved for the United
Kingdom coinage from 1985 was his first coin design.
On 8 August 1984 Her Majesty approved two new designs for use on United Kingdom coinage
from 1 January 1985, one for circulating coins and one for large commemorative issues.
Selected form thirty-eight models submitted by seventeen artists, both are the work of
sculptor Raphael Maklouf. He set out with the intention of producing "a symbol ...
regal and ageless" and following his selection was granted two sittings by the
Queen.
His "Third Portrait" of Elizabeth II was used from 1985 to 1997 inclusive.
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Stuart Devlin was born in Geelong, Australia, in 1931. In his third year of
secondary education, he chose to become an art teacher, specializing in gold and
silversmithing. In 1957 he obtained a post at a Melbourne college and studied for a Diploma
of Art in gold and silversmithing. On the strength of this achievement, he was awarded
scholarships to study at the Royal College of Art in London. He excelled and, as a result,
was awarded a Fellowship by the Harkness Foundation of New York. He chose to spend the
two-year fellowship at Columbia University in the U.S.
On the completion of his overseas study in 1962, he returned to teach in Melbourne,
Australia, and subsequently became an inspector of art schools. In 1964, he won a
competition to design the first decimal coinage for Australia. In 1965, he moved to London
and opened a small workshop. This marked the beginning of Devlin's true style. |
He concluded that the role for a contemporary silversmith is to
enrich the way people live and work. He felt the nature of his craft and the romance of
precious metals gave him an opportunity to design pieces that added delight, surprise,
intrigue, and even amusement to what had become austere and even sterile within the modern
idiom of design.
Increasingly he turned out rich and romantic pieces that retained simple forms. Developing
these pieces required technical innovation because the traditional methods of enrichment
were either not available any more or were too time-consuming and therefore prohibitively
expensive. He adapted and devised techniques to enable him to produce a wide variety of
textures and filigree forms.
In 1967, he began designing jewelry and, over the next decade, became well-known in
London's West End. In 1982, he was granted the Royal Warrant of Appointment as
Goldsmith and Jeweller to Her Majesty the Queen.
Stuart Devlin produces a new collection each year. This has forced him to continually seek
new ideas for his next collection, particularly since the many collectors of his work
anticipate something exciting and different each year. Among his most popular commissions,
Stuart Devlin has designed coins for 36 countries throughout the world, including
Singapore, Malaysia, and the Cayman Islands. He has designed hundreds of commemorative
medallions. He designs furniture, interiors, jewelry, and commission pieces of all types,
including trophies, clocks, centerpieces, candelabra, bowls, and insignia.
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In 1952 Ian Rank-Broadley was born at Walton-on-Thames, Surrey,
growing up and then studying at the Epsom School of Art, where he studied sculpture under
Bruce McLean, moving on to the Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London, with
Post-graduate studies under Reg Butler, Michael Kenny & John Davies.
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| 1976-77 |
Boise Scholarship. Studied in Rome and visited Naples, Florence, Venice &
Paris |
| 1977 |
Assistant to Reg Butler during work on late painted bronzes |
| 1982 |
Visiting lecturer in Life studies, Heatherley School of Art, London |
| 1990 |
Elected Fellow of the Society of Numismatic Artists & Designers |
| 1994 |
Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of British Sculptors (ARBS 1989) |
| 1995 |
Elected to the Art Workers Guild |
| 1996 |
Made a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths'
Granted Freedom of the City of London |
| 1973 |
Major Award in Sculpture from the British Institution Fund,
Royal Academy of Arts, London |
| 1996 |
Prize for bronze maquette for Dante's Gates of Hell XI Biennale
Dantesca, Ravenna Italy |
| 1997 |
Winner of Royal Mint competition for the new effigy of HM Queen for
use on the United Kingdom & Commonwealth coinage from 1998 |
| 1998 |
Winner of Royal Mint competition for the Queen Mother Centennial Crown |
| 2000 |
First Prize Craftsmanship & Design Awards (modelling) Goldsmiths'
Craft Design Council |
| 2001 |
Winner of Royal Mint competition for effigy of HM Queen for Golden
Jubilee crown & medal |
| 2002 |
Coin effigy of HM Queen to be used by British Hallmarking Council
for Golden Jubilee Hallmark |
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Wojciech Pietranik was born in 1950 in the city of Gdansk,
Poland. He began studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk at the age of 20. He
graduated in 1975 with an honours diploma.
Wojciech moved to Australia in 1985 where he undertook a variety of jobs as well as
teaching sculpture. During 1989, he took the position of Designer and Engraver at the Royal
Australian Mint. In 1992, his talent was recognised by a Churchill Fellowship Award which
enabled him to study at the School of Medallic Art in Rome.
Wojciech has designed many Royal Australian Mint products including 1999 $1 The Last Anzacs
Fine Silver and mintmarks coins, 1999 $1 Silver Kangaroo Coin, 1998 Royal Flying Doctor
Service coins and many medals.
In 1998 Wojciech was invited by the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games to
submit a design for the Victory Medals. Up against 19 other artists and designers, Wojciech
Pietranik entered a design that combined modern and traditional elements. Announced as the
winning designer on 4 October 1999 by the IOC in Athens, his design incorporates the wattle
trees of Australia, the Sydney Opera House and a reflection of the waters that surround
it. |
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