Among the group oi dislinguishcd artists working 

 during that time in Turin were the Law brothers. 



Amedeo La\y ' (1777-1864) was descended from 

 a Frencii family of engravers and sculptors who had 

 Ix'en established since the early seventeen-hvindreds 

 in Piedmont. His father Lorenzo, who studied in 

 Paris with Pierre Germain, the goldsmith of the 

 Royal Court, worked later as coin and medal engraver 

 at the Turin mint. He left an impressive series of 

 dies for a medallic history of the Savoy family, 

 Storin melallica delta Real Casa di Savoia. The older 

 son Carlo Michele 2 (1765-1813) after studying a 

 few vears in Paris, also worked, after 1789, at the 

 Tin-in mint. Amedeo Lavy, the younger and more 

 fortunate brother, led a highly diversified life. Well 

 known as a sculptor of portrait busts, statues, and 

 terra cottas (for the church in Castagnola), as an 

 engraver of coin and medal dies, and as a designer 

 of stamp and currency vignettes and of playing 

 cards, his renown remained widespread and his 

 popularity constant even during the changing regimes 

 of the Savoy kings and Napoleon. 



Lavy started at the age of thirteen as an apprentice 

 in the Turin mint, later completing his studies at the 

 .•\cademy of Fine Arts. One of his first works was a 

 copy of a portrait of Queen Christina of Sweden 

 (1794). Two years later he engraved the dies for the 

 coinage of Charles Emmanuel W of Savoy. The 

 vicissitudes of the Napoleonic wars brought him into 

 close contact with opposing factions, and he put his 

 art at the service of them all. During the War of the 

 Second Coalition (1799-1801) against France, he had 

 the opportimity to see the Russian Commander 

 Alexander SuvarofT and to model SuvarofFs portrait 

 in wa.x. A year later (1800) the French general .^ndrc 

 Massena had his portrait done Ijy -Xmedeo Lavy. In 

 the same year Lavy engraved the portrait of the 

 First Consul on a medal celebrating Bonaparte's 

 decisive victory at Marengo. The 20-franc piece 

 issued by the Subalpine Re[)ublic in commemoration 

 of the same victory (fig. 3) was also engrased by 

 Lavy, who mentions it in his diary. ^ In 1801 he was 

 elected iriember of the Subalpine Academy of History 



and Fine Arts and in 1803 he left for Rome to perfect 

 his technique in sculpture and cngraxing. 



In Rome Lavy worked under the direction of 

 Antonio Canova * for over a year, but a pulmonary 

 disease forced him to return to Turin. During the 

 subsequent years he continued unabated his work as a 

 sculptor and especially as a portraitist. After the 

 return of \'ictor Emmanuel I, Lavy devoted his 

 entire actixity to the glory of the Savoy king. A 

 continuous succession of coin dies, medals, seals — he 

 engrased the great seal of the state in 1815 — were the 

 result of these fruitful years. In 1817 he prepared 

 drawings and projects for the proposed decimal 

 system. In 1821, with the restoration of Charles Felix, 

 he modeled the new king's portrait (fig. 5) in only two 

 sittings, preparing all the dies for the new coinage. 

 This prodigious activity brought Lavy widespread 

 fame, and in 1823 he was appointed a member of the 

 Accademiadi S. Luca in Rome. But the recognition 

 given to him by the world apparently was not the 

 same w'hich he received at home in Piedmont. From 

 his diary we gather that he had administrative 

 difliculties at the Turin mint. He was forced to ask 

 for his retirement in 1 825. One year later he obtained 

 an annual pension of 2,400 lire and discontinued his 

 acti\ity at the mint, where, he noted with JDittcrncss 

 in his diary, members of his family had held the 

 position of chief engraver for almost a hundred years." 





I'ig. 1. — S.^UDiM.x, Victor Emmamei- 1. 5 lire, 1819 ' 

 (Pholo courtesy American Numismatic Society) 



> liDM, vol. :■:, pp. 347-349, and vol. 7, pp. 538-539; Thieme 

 and Becker, Allgemeines [^xikon, vol. 22, p. 480; Bolzenthal, 

 Skizzen zur Hunslgeschichlc, p. 304; A.s.sandri.\, Aiti dellii Sndela 

 Piemonlese di Arclieologia c Belle Arli (1916), vol. 8, fasc. 4, pp. 

 209-274. 



-• liDM, vol. 3, p. 349; Tuiemk and Becker, vol. 22, p. 480; 

 BOLZENTII.AL, pp. 303-304. 



3 "Ho inciso la pizza in oro Marengo . . . c loscudo di L. 5 

 uniformandomi al sistcma docimale come qucllo dclla I'ranc ia" 

 .XSSANDRIA, p. 247. 



' "Canova veniva sovcntc a corregermi" — ibid., p. 249. 



5 Ibid., p. 260. 



'' C\7, vol. 1, p. 441, coin 14; Paoani, Monele ilaliane, coin 

 321. 



BULLETIN 229: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MISEUM OF HISTORY .AND TECHNOLOGY 



