Watch List notes:

Italian School, Benjamin ben Eliahu Be'er (unknown dates), large bronze medal, dated either as 1497 or 1503, portrait of a Roman emperor wearing a crown of laurels and surrounded by Hebrew inscriptions and in Latin, VMILITAS below the bust, rev., inscribed around edge, POST TENEBRAS SPERO LVCEM FELICITATIS IVDEX DIES VLTIMVS D.III.M, 170mm (Hill 878; Arm. II, 142, 16; Friedenberg, D.M., Jewish Medals [1970], p. 72-76), suspension loop as top, an extremely fine old cast. Much has been written about this enigmatic piece which is generally regarded as the earliest Jewish medal. The Hebrew inscription in acrostic form has been translated as "Benjamin, son of the learned Rabbi Eliahu Be'er, the physician, let him live many good years". The first known example of the medal, now in Paris, was excavated in Lyon in 1656 and Hill proposed that all other examples "seem to be made from the Paris example". An old suggestion that it in some ways related to the election of Pope Julius II in 1503 is no longer tenable. A bronze example with a diameter of 166mm was sold in the Peus auction 412, 24 April 2014, lot 759 and a lead specimen formed part of a collection of medals sold together as a single lot in the Sotheby auction "Of Royal and Noble Descent", 19 January 2017, lot 7.
(1000-1500 GBP)