Stack's Bowers & Ponterio
January 2014 NYINC Auction - Sess. C-D 13 January 2014
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FRANCE. Death of Sadi Carnot, Assassinated President of France, 1894.
58x81mm, silver, by Roty. Maier 102, Jones 323, Baxter 35. Obverse: The slain president lies in state, attended by a mournful goddess (France); above, a landscape with basilica and date; at bottom, "The Country in Grief." Reverse: The coffin borne toward The Pantheon by females, their figures draped. Low relief, the reverse almost "misty." A masterwork of bas relief, yet Roty takes care to make an excellent, tiny portrait of Carnot.
The plaquette form had been little used since the Renaissance, when it was nearly always uniface, with mythological and religious themes predominating. Roty's two-sided rectangular medal was a great success with the public, as it should have been, simply because it was great art and captured the mood of the shocked and saddened nation. Further, the low, painterly relief, on a piece of the same canvass shape as most paintings, attracted attention from the wider arts community. Any doubt that Roty was in the first rank of French artists would not have survived the appearance of this piece; three years later his Sower design adorned French silver coins.
If any medal/plaquette can be ruled obligatory in an Art-Nouveau collection, it is this one. As expected it is not scarce in bronze but quite scarce in silver. In this metal, most examples exhibit so-so patination, but this example, with its satiny, silvery purple-grey surfaces is nicely toned,
ALMOST UNCIRCULATED.
58x81mm, silver, by Roty. Maier 102, Jones 323, Baxter 35. Obverse: The slain president lies in state, attended by a mournful goddess (France); above, a landscape with basilica and date; at bottom, "The Country in Grief." Reverse: The coffin borne toward The Pantheon by females, their figures draped. Low relief, the reverse almost "misty." A masterwork of bas relief, yet Roty takes care to make an excellent, tiny portrait of Carnot.
The plaquette form had been little used since the Renaissance, when it was nearly always uniface, with mythological and religious themes predominating. Roty's two-sided rectangular medal was a great success with the public, as it should have been, simply because it was great art and captured the mood of the shocked and saddened nation. Further, the low, painterly relief, on a piece of the same canvass shape as most paintings, attracted attention from the wider arts community. Any doubt that Roty was in the first rank of French artists would not have survived the appearance of this piece; three years later his Sower design adorned French silver coins.
If any medal/plaquette can be ruled obligatory in an Art-Nouveau collection, it is this one. As expected it is not scarce in bronze but quite scarce in silver. In this metal, most examples exhibit so-so patination, but this example, with its satiny, silvery purple-grey surfaces is nicely toned,
ALMOST UNCIRCULATED.