ITALIAN COIN ENGRAVERS SINCE 1800 



Bj Elvira Eli%a Clain-Stejanelli 

 INTRODUCTION 



Un phenomenc qui est d'ahord economiquc puis 



qui s'elargit dans Ic domaine de Testhetique. 



—Jean Babelon, La meJaille et Us medailleurs 



This study is concerned with coins as works of art. 

 It may seem unusual to a|ii)roach such objects of 

 daily use — regarded popularly as the quintessence of 

 crudest materialism — in esthetic terms. Nevertheless, 

 coins are a direct and sincere expression of their time 

 and are often true reflections of the artistic concepts 

 of a period as they filter through the personality of an 

 artist. 



It is customary to regard only coins from earlier 

 periods of history as creations of art and to deny this 

 characteristic to contemporary productions. Essen- 

 tially, however, there is little difference between an 

 ancient and a modern coin. Both are frank expres- 

 sions of their age. But there is some weight to the 

 former view. While in cla.ssical times the ideal of 

 beauty formed an integral j)art of everyday life, in 

 the modern world a more utilitarian ideal predom- 

 inates— a fact which is often reflected in coins. With 

 technical progress and its emphasis on mechanical 

 processes there has come a neglect of spontaneity in 

 expression. Despite this, however, many modern coin 

 engravers have succeeded in giving an artistic 

 interpretation to e\en the coldest and most oflicial 

 pattern, and their work must be considered in terms 

 of genuine art. 



The modern coinage of Italy presents many in- 

 teresting problems, among them the investigation of 

 how a country in which a strong art tradition had 



existed since ancient times met the challenges which 

 its own period presented and how that country com- 

 peted with the conteinporary art of other nations, 

 especially France. It is interesting to observe also 

 how tradition, that sometime beneficent guide for 

 new generations, can become a merciless tyrant which 

 annihilates spontaneity, one of the most desirable 

 qualities in art. A related problem lies in discovering 

 how Italian artists tried to satisfy the quest for inno- 

 vation, how they attempted to get away from es- 

 tablished patterns, and where they directed their 

 attention for new inspiration. 



To appreciate the creative process of each coin 

 engpraver, to understand his personality, his problems, 

 and to evaluate his creations as esthetic reflections 

 within a historical framework is the theme of the 

 present study. This primary motif is shifted at times 

 to a more detective-like process of trying to identify, 

 along lines of stylistic peculiarities, the various artists 

 who worked anonymously on a certain coinage. 



For reasons of space this is necessarily a selective 

 study. It is not a complete series of the artists of the 

 period nor is it a complete listing of each man's work, 

 but rather it presents the major figures and their more 

 representative productions. In general, the large 

 silver and gold coins are given preference, with atten- 

 tion centered on portraits, since the latter, in fact, are 

 considered the ultimate test of a coin engraver's per- 



BULLETIN 229: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISrOR\' .\XD TECHNOLOGY 



