BENEDETTO PISTRUCCI ITALIAN MEDALLIST & GEM-ENGRAVER 1784 — 1855 BY L. FORRER, F.R.N.S. MEMBER OF THE ITALIAN NUMISMATIC SOCIETY AND OF THE CIRCOLO NUMISMATICO MILANESE ( Extract from the “Biographical Dictionary of Medallists , &c. ’f LONDON SPINK & SON Ltd 17 & 18 Piccadilly, London, W. Price : 2/6 Nett. 1906 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/benedettopistrucOOforr BENEDETTO PISTRUCCI ITALIAN MEDALLIST & GEM-ENGRAVER 1784 — 1855 BY L. FORRER, F.R.N.S. MEMBER OF THE ITALIAN NUMISMATIC SOCIETY AND OF THE CIRCOLO NUMISMATICO MILANESE (. Extract from the “Biographical Dictionary of Medallists , &c. ’ ) LONDON SPINK & SON Ltd 17 & 18 Piccadilly, London, W. Price : 2 6 Nett. 1906 PROTAT BROTHERS, PRINTERS, MACON (FRANCE) BENEDETTO PISTRUCCI This distinguished Gem-engraver, Medallist and Coin-engraver, born in Rome on 29. May 1784, died at Flora Lodge, near Windsor on 1 6 September 1855. He was the second son of a family of three. His father, Frederico Pistrucci, a Judge in the Criminal Court, and his mother, Antonia Greco, were both Romans, who enjoyed a fairly good position and were enabled to bestow a liberal education on their children. The eldest son, Philip, devoted himself to painting, but was equally successful as a Copper-plate engraver, and a poet. Benedetto attended schools at Bologna, Rome and Naples, but did not show himself a brilliant scholar. He owns, in his autobiography, that he acquired little Latin, and preferred amusing himself by constructing toy cars and cannon. His father intended him to become a lawyer, whereas his tastes lay in quite another direction. Having made acquaintance at Naples with a painter of the name of Mango, whose brother in Rome was an Engraver of cameos, “ he became quite crazy to learn such a profession ”, and at the age of fourteen he was sent to Rome to be apprenticed to Signor Mango. Although his master was an indifferent artist, the youth made rapid progress, and in less than a year was able to draw figures, which were considered excellent. He now applied himself to serious study under Tofanelli, and even on holy days, after having fulfilled the duties of religion, he and his brother Philip, used to go to the chambers of the Vatican painted by Raphael, to draw after the great Master. After some months of arduous labour, he had acquired considerable ability in cutting hard and soft flints, which Mango sold with great profit to himself. About this time, in a dispute which arose between Benedetto and his colleagues at the workshop, he was severely wounded, and was confined to his house in conse- quence. He set himself to model in wax, at home, without any instruction, bas-reliefs, heads, mythological subjects, etc., and thus — 4 - attracted the notice of a cameo-merchant, Domenico Desalief, who gave him a stone of three strata to cut for him, and later employed him on a large cameo, representing the Crowning of a Warrior, which was considered by Denon, Director of the Paris Medal Mint, as an antique, and passed as such in the Cabinet of the Czarina Catherine II. Benedetto was about fifteen when his father placed him with the Gem-engraver Morelli, an eminent artist, patronized by the Pope Benedetto Pistrucci (enlarged from Elisa Pistrucci’s Portrait-cameo). and Napoleon I. “In the space of eleven months, he cut nine cameos for him, amongst which were some both large and difficult, and, in his leisure hours, he made five for himself. ” He employed his spare time in attending the Drawing Academy at the Campi- doglio, and, modelling in clay, obtaining the first prize in sculpture at the first competition. Morelli, says Pistrucci, grew jealous of him, and wishing to check his progress, gave him menial work to do, — 5 — unsuited to his abilities, so he decided to start business on his own account, and as he expresses it, c< " loaded with commissions on all sides, I began my career of professor, at not quite sixteen years of age r In 1802 the artist married Barbara Folchi, the daughter of a well- to-do merchant in Rome, by whom, at the age of nineteen, he had already a daughter, named Victoria, and at twenty, a son, Vin- cenzio. This son, like most of the males in Pistrucci’s family (including the artist himself), was born with a curious physical peculiarity in having the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet covered with a thick callous skin ; Pistrucci states that he had to pare it, from time to time, with a razor. Until 1814, with short intervals, the artist worked at Rome, at first for the dealer Ignazio Vescovali, who supplied many gems to Portrait Model of Napoleon I., by Pistrucci. Poniatowski, Blacas, and other collectors, then for Count Demidof, a wealthy Russian, and General Bale, and later also for the dealer Angiolo Bonelli, who did not scruple to pass off some of his pro- ductions as antiques. He made Portrait-cameos of Princess Bacciochi, Grand-Duchess of Tuscany (Napoleon’s sister), and was, at her request, entrusted to give instruction in modelling at the court, and for this purpose was invited to Florence and Pisa. The Queen of Naples, and Princess Borgtrse also patronized him, and he executed a portrait of the Princess Napoleon, and of the Marchesa Canami, daughter of the Spanish Ambassador. — 6 In 1814 the downfall of Napoleon caused Pistrucci to return to Rome, where Bonelli, who had just returned from England, gave him a great quantity of work to do, at the same time suggesting, jokingly, that he should go to London. He readily agreed to accom- pany Bonelli, but did no go further than Paris with him (December 1814). There he met several collectors from whom he obtained orders, and made a model in wax of Napoleon, which “ was consid- ered extremely like”. On the approach of the Allies to Paris, Pistrucci set out for Lon- don. At Dover, probably on the instigation of Bonelli, he suffered very rough handling on the part of the Custom officials, who over- hauled all his stock of cameos and models. In London, he put up at Brunet’s Hotel, in Leicester Square. Through a Mr. Konig, to whom the artist was recommended from Paris, he made the acquaintance of Sir Joseph Banks, who ordered him to model his portrait. At his house, he met the famous collector, Richard Payne Knight, who had come to show a cameo — a fragment, representing the head of Flora (or Persephone), — purchased as an antique from Bonelli for £ 100 (some accounts state five hundred, and two hundred and fifty guineas). Pistrucci at once recognized it as his work, and “explained to Knight that he had made it for Bonelli about six years previously at Rome for less than £ 5, and that like all his productions it bore his private mark, a Greek A”. “Knight”, continues Mr. Wroth,” angrily asserted that the cameo was antique, and declared to Banks that the wreath was not of roses, but of an extinct species of pomegranate blossoms. Banks examined it and exclaimed, ‘ By God they are roses — - and I am a botanist’. Pistrucci was commissioned to cut another Flora, which even exceeded in beauty the first one, but Knight would not be persuaded even then that his original purchase was not an antique, and in his manuscript catalogue of his gems, which he bequeathed to the British Museum, he persists in describing the wreath as of pome- granate blossoms — c non rosas, ut B. Pistrucci gemmarum sculptor, qui lapidem hunc se sua manu scalpisse gloriatus est, praedicaverat, Fragmentary Cameo, Head of Flora, by Pistrucci. et se eas ad vivum imitando expressisse, pari stultitia et impudentia assuerit. ” Pistrucci made a third ‘Flora’ cameo for William Richard Hamilton, vice-president of the Society of Antiquaries, and yet another replica is still in the possession of Major S. Poggioli, in Rome. Pistrucci now began to be patronized, and his success, says King, “surpassed, as far as pecuniary remuneration went, the wildest dreams of any of his profession in previous ages.” Sir Joseph Banks paid him fifty guineas for making a portrait of George III. in a jasper cameo, and in 1816, he presented him to the Master of the Mint, Mr. Wellesley Pole (afterwards Lord Maryborough), who gave the jasper cameo of George III. to be copied on the Half- View of the Royal Mint, London, temp. George III. crown, by Thomas Wyon Junior, the Chief-engraver. The work proved inferior to Pistrucci’s model and was disapproved. “The Italian artist having suggested St. George and the Dragon as a suitable subject for the reverse of the new gold coinage, he was commissioned by Pole to execute a cameo of it in jasper, to be copied ; for which he paid him, by agreement, one hundred gui- neas. At this juncture (1817) T. Wyon died and from the ill- success of the copy of Pistrucci’s George III. by the Mint-engraver, and the improbability of any other person in the Mint being able to copy the George and Dragon, the Master considered that it would be necessary to employ Pistrucci himself to engrave both subjects on the dies, and offered him the post of Chief-engraver, with a salary of five hundred pounds per annum, and one of the houses within the walls of the Royal Mint appropriated for the officers of the establishment” (Billing, op. cit., p. 192). — 8 — The jasper George and the Dragon, purchased by Wellesley Pole for the coins, was an original , and not the cameo, or wax model, which he had made previously for a f George ’ to be worn by Earl Spencer, K. G. The design was considerably modified, and the St. George was modelled from life, the original being an Italian servant in Brunet’s Hotel. Pattern Crown of George IV., 1820; by Pistrucci. Pistrucci’s St. George and the Dragon first appeared on the Sovereign of 1817 and Pattern Crowns of the same date. The Crown of George IV. was called by Denon, the Director of the French Mint, the handsomest coin in Europe. ‘‘The design, still retained, does not”, observes Mr. Wroth, “strictly speaking, owe its origin to Pistrucci.lt can be traced back to a shell-cameo, the £ Bataille coquille’, in the collection of the Duke of Orleans. This was copied, at least in part, by Giovanni Pichler, whose intaglio with this subject became popular in Rome. Pistrucci himself, when in Italy, had made four copies (two cameos and two intaglios) of Pichler’s intaglio. ” Pistrucci made several patterns of the f Sovereign ’ and c Crown ’ of George III. A fine Pattern Crown (obv. only; illustrated), from the artist’s own collection, and later in the Murdoch Collection, exhibits the best portrait of George III. the artist was ever able to cut. The coin was accompanied by an autograph note, of which the following is a translation. Enclosed is a proof of the head of the Five-shilling Piece of George III., of extreme rarity, being unique, the die having broken as may be seen by the flaw in the impression. This is different from all, and as regards the work it is the best head which I ever did for that coin. I never succeeded in re-doing it as fine, notwithstanding the innumerable times I had to repeat the puncheons and dies of the said coin, which broke, and although I nearly always used the remainder of thh puncheon to do the others, it will be clearly seen that the first is always the best. This is in my possession, as the mint master gave it to me, as he did at — 9 — other times, not asking me for the payment of the metal as I was obliged to pay afterwards. — B. Pistrucci. Pattern Crown of George III , by Pistrucci. Referring to the reverse of the Crown, Hawkins criticises the design. cc The position of the right leg was purposely, but unfor- tunately, changed ; for, as the hero now sits upon his horse, he must inevitably fall to the ground the moment he attempts to Original Design of the St. George and Dragon, by Pistrucci. strike the meditated blow with the sword. ” In answer to this criticism, Billing remarks : cc Now, Pistrucci, who had doated upon horses from his childhood (a perfect TiXoituo;), and who — as was said of Murat, and perhaps of many others — - c rode like a Centaur’, — 10 was not likely to represent a hero that could not keep his seat; on the contrary, every one can see on the sovereign, double-sovereig-n, or crown piece, that the rider sits perfectly straight and firm, — that the left foot is visible below the horse’s belly, showing that the rider has closed his left leg to counterbalance the exertion of the right arms ” Various alterations in the design of the St. George and Dragon are noticeable on Patterns of the Sovereign. One of these, undated, was accompanied by an interesting note, of which the following is a partial translation, showing the artist’s description of the progress of his work : Extremely rare prool ot a sovereign, with head of George III, finished, but without the lettering, the reverse is unfinished; my first work with the graving- tool, and struck without a collar. One may like to know that, when I did this work, I had had no practice as yet in engraving on steel. After having engraved the puncheon, I had it tempered in its unfinished state, and a die executed from it. I had the surface of the die planed, and then struck this proof coin to see the effect of my work. After this, I made another puncheon, which I finished, feeling sure that my work was raised over a flat surface. One will see on this piece the marks of the wire-work design, which I drew to be sure of what I was doing, a thing I never had to do when engraving camei, an art in which I had much more practice. — It will be noticed further that the handle of the spear is shorter than on the current coins with the same St. George, and this I did so that the spear-handle should not pass over the horse, which did not seem tasteful to me. — This piece is one of the most curious of my small series of proofs, and I value it very highly because it is my first work and I saw it struck from the presses at the Mint, &c., &c. — B. Pistrucci. Unfinished Proof of the Sovereign. Two Reverses of Proof Sovereigns (Murdoch sale, March 1904, lot 190) were described thus by Pistrucci, in the autograph note in which they were wrapped ; These. proofs were struck from a die which had passed four times through the fire, and got worse each time, the action of the fire spoiling the edges, and I am only surprised that they are as good after so many experiments. I had these proofs made, as I w ? anted to see the effect of the hand holding the bridle, as, after having completed my work from my model, they made me change the hand, which was at first showing a portion of the arm, to what is now seen on the current coins. These are of the highest rarity and unique. Presented by Mr. Pole. — B. Pistrucci. In my list of Pistrucci’s works I give a fairly exhaustive list of his monetary productions, as well as of his gems and wax models, from information I have been supplied with by Major Serafino Pog- gioli, husband of his granddaughter. “ During the manufacture of the new coinage in 1 8 1 6 Pistrucci was employed at the mint as an outside assistant. On 22 September 1817 Thomas W-yon died, and Pole offered Pistrucci the post of Chief- engraver. The appointment was resisted by the moneyers (the corporation of the Mint), and for several years Pistrucci was attacked and calumniated in the cc Times ” and other newspapers, chiefly on the ground of his foreign origin. He found a staunch defender in W. R. Hamilton. The office of Chief-engraver was kept in abeyance, though Pistrucci continued to perform the duties. At last, in 1828, as a compromise, William Wyon, the second engraver at the mint, was made Chief-engraver, and Pistrucci received the designation of “ Chief Medallist ” (W. Wroth, Diet. Nat. Biog., XLV, 329). Obv. of Pattern Crown, 1818, by Pistrucci (without the artist’s signature). Pistrucci, says King, gave great offence to the susceptibilities of John Bull, by signing his name in full in the exergue of the crowns, a thing hitherto unknown in this country, though commonly done abroad (Ant. Gems, 1872, 449). Among Pistrucci’s chief opponents were Mr. Hawkins, the Keeper of Coins and Antiquities at the British Museum, and Nicholas Carlisle, Secretary of the Society ol Antiquaries. The artist’s works were described as having a scratchy appearance, and of wanting in boldness; he was reported to have cut the steel matrices by means of a lapidary’s wheel, and practically accused of extorting money from the Master of the Mint. Carlisle’s aspersions were refuted by W. R. Hamilton, who broke friendship over the quarrel. In a letter to Carlisle by W. D. Haggard, in the possession of Messrs. Spink & Son L d , occurs the passage : “ Wyon could no more cut the beautiful gems in which Pistrucci excels than could Pistrucci engrave dies equal in beauty to those of Wyon”. Hawkins had nevertheless to acknowledge that cc Pistrucci’s work is beautifully executed, and its appearance was hailed with pleasure, and with the hope, that those who were in authority were weaning themselves from their attachment to armorial bearings, and becoming alive to the beauty, interest, and importance of classical reverses Third Stage. Fourth Stage. Pattern Crown of George III. (small head), 1818, by Pistrucci (showing four successive stages of the process of engraving). white bees-wax. He afterwards spread this wax upon a piece of glass or slate, adding and working in successive portions until the design was completed to his satisfaction. When the human figure had to be reproduced, he represented it first in a nude condition, to secure a natural and correct rendering of the postures and relative measure- First St a^e. Second Stage. Pistrucci was very fond of showing his mode of working, which may be described at follows. He first drafted a design of the future die he intended to engrave, then made a model in a preparation of — la- ments ol the individual parts; afterwards the needful draperies and other accessory embellishments were added and worked over. Such models were made upon a scale that afforded a design of larger size than the die which was intended to be engraved. They were plotted into squares of equal measurements, and so transferred with accuracy direct to the metallic surface. In many instances, the artist cut the types in steel without previously making a model. Some Third Stage Completed Die. ( without the artist's signature'). Pattern Crown of George III. (large head), 1818, by Pistrucci (showing four successive stages of the process of engraving). Patterns in lead, from Pistrucci’s own collection, show the progressive stages of his work, and give an idea of the accuracy, minuteness, and painstaking method and process of engraving coin-dies. — H — The weakest part of Pistrucci’s style, notes King, is his treatment ot the hair, which is extremely unnatural and wiry. Yet his Corona- tion medals of George IV. and Victoria are entirely free from this defect (Ant. Gems, p. 449). Pistrucci was entrusted with the cutting of dies for the coinage The Waterloo Medallion (obv.), by Pistrucci. from 1817, and he retouched and corrected the matrices and punches of the silver coins dated 1815-1817. The Crowns were issued in 1818, 1819 and 1820. In 1820 he engraved a Pattern Five Pound piece of George III., of which only twenty-five specimens were — i5 — officially struck, but it is said that Pistrucci, on hearing of the death of the King, gave hasty orders for the striking off of a few more specimens. A proof in silver was amongst the coins left by the artist to his daughter; it was mounted as a brooch which had been worn by her many years. Of that same date is also the Pattern The Waterloo Medallion (1^..), by Pistrucci. Two Pound piece, of which about sixty specimens were struck. There were two proofs of this piece in silver in the Pistrucci collec- tion. Beside these Patterns, we find by the artist Sovereigns of George III., 1817, 1818, 1819 (perhaps unique), and 1820; Half- sovereigns 1817, 1818, and 1820 (a Pattern), as well as many other Proofs and Patterns which will be found enumerated below. Under George IV., Pistrucci engraved the early coins of this reign, tyL. of Double Sovereign, 1823; Sovereign; 182 1-1825 ; Half-sovereign, 1821, 1823-25 ; Crown, 1821-22; Pattern Crown, &c. {Vide List of productions). For his Coronation medal of George IV., Pistrucci, after refusing to copy Sir Thomas Lawrence’s portrait of the King, obtained sittings. Again, he declined to reproduce Sir Francis Chantrey’s bust of George, when he was required to execute a medal commem- orating the royal visit to Ireland, in 1821, and on the coinage of 1822. In this way he wounded the amour-propre of the Royal Academicians, and of many other influential peisons. Fie had no share, says Wroth, in producing the Coronation medal of William IV., as he again refused to copy a bust b}^ Chantrey, but Queen Victoria sat for her portrait on the Coronation medal of 1838, which was hastily executed by Pistrucci in three months, and gave general dissatisfaction. “ In 1838 ”, continues Mr. Wroth, “ Pistrucci, on the recom- mendation of Samuel Rogers, made the silver seal of the duchy of Lancaster. The work was finished in the short space of fifteen days by a process which the artist claimed to have invented, and by which a punch or die could be cast in metal from the wax or clay model, instead of being copied from it with graving tools, as had hitherto been usual (Weber, Medals and Medallions , &c., 1894). The originality of this process (which has since been adopted by medallists) was disputed at the time by John Baddeley {Mechanics' Magazine, XXVII, 401), who claimed that it had been practised fifty years before by his grandfather at the Soho Mint ; but Pistrucci’s claim was defended by William Baddeley {ib., XXVIII, 36) and others (cf. Num. journal , II. 1 1 r f . ; Num. Chron. I, 53, 123 L 230 f.) ”. The real inventor of the first Reducing machine was Hulot, in 1766, and his invention served as a pattern to all the later appliances of the same kind. Pistrucci’s master-piece is undoubtedly the Waterloo Medallion which took him over thirty years to complete. It was begun in 1817 and the matrices were not delivered to the Master of the Mint before 1850. Pistrucci, on his appointment at the Mint, 1817, had no longer any opportunity of earning anything beyond his salary ; he wished to bring his family from Rome, and to pay his expenses, needed a certain sum of money. To remunerate him in lieu of engraving gems, the Master of the Mint hit upon the expedient of ordering the Waterloo Medal, as an extra work, for the execution of which it was agreed that he should be paid three thousand five hundred pounds sterling, the sum of two thousand pounds being advanced to him by instalments within a short time {Billing, p. 193). _ t 7 _ The Waterloo medallion, the dies of which were never hardened, though impressions in soft metal and electrotypes were taken and sold to the public, far excelled, according to Pistrucci’s own published account, anything ever attempted in that way both in its magnitude (4 § inches in diameter) and likewise in the number of the figures introduced. King states that it had been originally the intention of the Mint to present a copy in gold to each ot the princes who shared in the triumph, and in silver to the minor <■ u\?} 'V jtr*. <<_ /i .T/f+Tu* WtJtr t '4.^^-Co .» tSt <4- - £> p~stc£rrTi‘' J\ SL) ■ yt+ALi , Jt «« A*;. i ~J a 1/UJL .yj„ /L~>» „<&;> /*U>. - „xo , . ^(v* y/Jj&tuiC ts*^/ay^A aJ^ipZ. '•d.ACC*' u*~7 {H ut fJ7> *r r -r— :'r" v ig /£: ,„+.&Zau ■*** Z/A • &**firrt\A. JT Ay. a * prnap^rxe rn*M>> >> ' - ,f O !**-* • *A af Ittn -- - ' -4- A°; .. ■■ 7 ' f l>O^L4l rr\A/>-J^jsx " v ^ JU," ^ t /yA-f ' • s>% /. L-tjO y>o ikJxjT) 1 ^ / •JA.& 'rJte*,*** .--y '/»« ;i. w< ZuZj t l: . f-AU 1 cA^sun' 'ivjvfcy • * , ^ , f-p jdji C /TV-uO \A+C'C*\*~) ■o^' / O. >fo ■{&<*>■ #ws t £> /i 7 /? /A 1 / , . i ^ ’/' ./■«“ C'^'tr* r>W&* ntJy‘ v„wf ' /.w ■ Ajf'* S3. - Facsimile of an Autograph Note of Pistrucci. satellites of their glory. Tempora mutantur. The dies lie in the Mint Museum. A very full description of the medallion is given in the Illustrated London -News, 22 June 1861. After 1825 Pistrucci’s connection with thecoinageentirelv ceased. He continued to reside at the Mint until 1849, where he was employed in cutting dies for medals. In his spare time he was allowed to follow his proper profession. He obtained very high — 18 — prices tor his cameos and intaglios (the latter are now very rare), and occasionally executed busts, as those of the Duke of Welling- ton (in the United Service Museum), of Pozzo di Borgo, and several London friends. In October 1839 the Papal government offered Pistrucci the post of Chief-engraver at the Mint of Rome, but finding his emoluments too low he returned to London in 1840. In 1849 the artist went to live at Fine Arts Cottage, Old Wind- sor, and a little later he moved to Flora Lodge, Englefleld Green, near Windsor, where he died, of inflammation of the lungs, on 1 6. September 1855. His sight remained good to the last ; he was able to do minute work, and undertake orders for gems until a few months before his death. His handwriting was unusually small. I reproduce a facsimile of one of the autograph notes which accompanied some of the coins in his collection, which until a few years ago was in the possession of his relative, Major Serafino Poggioli, of Rome. Pistrucci had six children, the two eldest were born at Rome, and one died in early youth. His son, Camillo, was a pupil 01 Thorwaldsen, and obtained an appointment from the Papal govern- ment to restore ancient statues. He died of cholera in 1854. The two younger daughters, Elena and Maria Eliza (Signora Marsuzi), who resided for some years at the Mint with their father, after the family’s return to Rome, acquired skill in gem-engraving and attained celebrity at Rome, at a later time, as Cameo-engravers. Pistrucci was a Member of the Athenaeum Club from 1842, and held diplomas from the Academy of St. Luke at Rome, from the Royal Academy of Arts at Copenhagen, and from the Institute of France. He was a man of fine presence, but very excitable, and as he describes himself unfortunately very proud. He was very persev- ering and laborious, working sometimes for eighteen hours out of the twenty-four. To honour the memory of Pistrucci the municipality of Rome has given his name to one of the streets of the new aristocratic quarter of the city. It may be going too far to endorse D r Billing’s appreciation ot the artist when he says : “Pistrucci was, and is, and will remain, the immortal of the nineteenth century, as Dioscorides of the first, and Cellini of the (cinque cento) sixteenth ; ” nevertheless, the Italian Medallist and Gem-engraver stands very high amongst his colleagues, and in the glyptic art he certainly was not surpassed in the nineteenth century. Extract from The Illustrated London News. Sep. 22^ 1855, page 347. Benedetto Pistrucci is no more ! Who has not heard of Pistrucci ? It was Pistrucci who made (with the exception of the Shillings and Sixpences) all the — i 9 — Coins of King George III, since the Peace of 1815, and the' Six principal coins ol King George IV. He was the great man at the Mint between Pingo and Wyon, and was certainly a master in his art. The collector of English medals has few finer things to show than the Coronation medal of George IV ; which the then Master of the Mint very properly entrusted to Benedetto. There was a great outcry at the time at the selection of a foreigner ; but we doubt very much if there was anyone then in England at all equal to Pistrucci in the mysterious art of die- sinking. The result at least justified the choice. Die-sinkers for the coins in England have lived in a state of warfare with one another. The great Simon, in the reign of King Charles II., was at strife with the Dutch brothers, the celebrated Roettiers ; his famous Petition Crown (perhaps the finest in the world) originating in his controversy at the Mint. The Roettiers afterwards quarrelled with Rawlings. Rawlings succeeded to more than one feud ; Croker, an Irishman, employed at the Mint in the reign of Queen Anne, had his disturbances ; his successors were not without theirs ; and in our own time, the quarrel between the late Mr. Wyon and now the late Mr. Pistrucci was in the calling of art a matter of public and unhappy notoriety. The man who made the coronation medal of George IV. , and ail the fine £ ‘ Dragon ” sovereigns of that Monarch, was, we believe, first brought into notice at the Mint when Mr. Pole was Master. Pole thought more than favourably of his abilities, and Pistrucci was at once employed on a medal (the Medal) designed to commem- orate what was then a recent event, the Battle of Waterloo. Great things were expected from this medal. It was to excel we were assured — whatever “ inso- lent Greece or haughty Rome” had struck and “sown ” to commemorate their greatest victories both by land and wave. What Simon had done for the great victories over the Dutch achieved by Blake against Van Tromp and De Ruyter was to sink into insignificance when compared with Pistrucci's medal for the victory achieved by Wellington over Napoleon. The Master and the Moneyers of the Mint were plagued with early applications for proof impressions of the glorious medal. Collectors reserved central circles in their cabinets for examples of the coming wonder. Years passed by, and nothing was heard of it. The old King died, and still nothing certain was heard about it. George the Fourth died, and collectors were still impatient. William the Fourth died, and Mr. Hamilton assured us that it was in hand — would be a glorious work, and one well worth waiting for. Then came the Mint Commission of 1848, and it was not forthcoming. Why? The artist had given — so he informed the Commission — ten long years, and those with long days, to this very Medal. But it was still unfinished. He had been ill used, but proposed to call on the Master of the Mint on the I st of January, 1849, to place in his hands the two matrices of the long expected medal. The I st of January came, but no medal. The Great Captain whose Victory it was designed to commemorate died, and yet no medal ; and now forty years after the event Pistrucci himself dies, and the medal is unpublished and unknown to the Master of the Mint. If the commemoration of Waterloo had depended on Mr. Pistrucci’s medal, it had been forgotten as much as Bosworth field or Bunker’s hill. On Sunday last this eminent engraver ceased to exist. He died at Englefield Green in the seventy-third year of his age, a duration of life to which, in conversation amongst his friends, he had no idea of reaching. The fumes of the refinery at the Mint had shortened his days, so he was wont to allege, waiting the scriptural threescore and ten. From the sulphuric acid of that plague spot he had been subject (and from no other cause) to very severe headaches, and to a continuous difficulty in breathing. Sulphuric acid tainted his tongue in the morning and at night ; yet he lived, we see, into his seventy-third year, and has left a name to be honourably remembered in the art he practised with a skill very rare indeed among modern die-sinkers. We sincerely trust that he has left the Waterloo Medal in a finished state; and, if so, that his friends will add to his well earned reputation by giving it to the world at once. GENEALOGICAL TABLE 16 < 15 5 S ^ Ou 2 r h H P3 §21 O CP ^ < — o5 rt - r v w * w T3 ■- Pu ^ H O bC