A Bear Hugging a Column (obverse); Inscription with Oak Wreath (reverse)

Label

Portrait medals preserved the memory and identity of the sitter. While they had no worth in an economic sense, they held significant social value. Often combining a portrait, an inscription, and a personal emblem, portrait medals functioned as a kind of propaganda, concentrating key information about the depicted person’s wealth, position, and likeness. The circulation of portrait medals materialized the relationship between the giver and the recipient, and individuals exchanged such gifts in order to forge relationships, seal political alliances, join families in marriage, or show favor. In amassing the portraits of contemporaries, relatives, rivals, and nobility, Europeans articulated their social networks in concrete form. Brought together in the home, often in large quantities, medals functioned in conversation with one another and with their viewers.

From the 2024 exhibition Living with Sculpture: Presence and Power in Europe, 1400–1750, curated by Elizabeth Rice Mattison, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Academic Programming and Curator of European Art, and Ashley B. Offill, Curator of Collections

Course History

History 42.01, Women's Gender, and Sexuality Studies 22.01, Gender & European Society, Patrick Meehan, Spring 2024

History 96.39, Saints and Relics, Cecilia Gaposchkin, Spring 2024

Italian 1.01, Introductory Italian I, Noemi Perego, Spring 2024

Italian 11.01, Intensive Italian, Floriana Ciniglia, Spring 2024

Italian 2.01, Introductory Italian II, Floriana Ciniglia, Spring 2024

Italian 3.01, Introductory Italian III, Tania Convertini, Spring 2024

Italian 3.02, Introductory Italian III, Giorgio Alberti, Spring 2024

Exhibition History

Living with Sculpture: Presence and Power in Europe, 1400–1750, Citrin Family Gallery and Engles Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 23, 2024–March 22, 2025.

Provenance

Wallace D. Bradway, New Haven, Connecticut, before 2008; given to present collection, 2022.

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