Stack's Bowers & Ponterio
January 2014 NYINC Auction - Sess. C-D 13 January 2014
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FRANCE. Inauguration of the Musee Social, 1896.
60mm bronze, by Roty. Maier 99. Obverse: A seated woman, in the usual flowing dress, seated in a library, architectural plans on her table. Reverse: An academic entering the building, with a worker --at a respectable distance-- following him.
The museum --a research institute, in practice-- was devoted to social problems, i.e. working-class issues. This piece is so emblematic of the class system, one might expect the Musee to promulgate an austere liberalism that contained the lower classes as much as it might raise them. The institution was private, not governmental, but worked hard to find solutions through joint public/private efforts. Over time, the public dimension came to dominate, and the Musee is credited as the think tank which guided the creation of the French welfare state.
This kind of subject matter barely existed in medals of earlier periods. While the language of Art-Nouveau was the diaphanously-clad nymph 'midst leafy boughs, the social landscape of the period reflected the downsized importance of monarchs and generals, and the rise of the professions. More than a few medals, and not just commissioned portrait pieces, acknowledge the social milieu.
NEARLY MINT STATE.
60mm bronze, by Roty. Maier 99. Obverse: A seated woman, in the usual flowing dress, seated in a library, architectural plans on her table. Reverse: An academic entering the building, with a worker --at a respectable distance-- following him.
The museum --a research institute, in practice-- was devoted to social problems, i.e. working-class issues. This piece is so emblematic of the class system, one might expect the Musee to promulgate an austere liberalism that contained the lower classes as much as it might raise them. The institution was private, not governmental, but worked hard to find solutions through joint public/private efforts. Over time, the public dimension came to dominate, and the Musee is credited as the think tank which guided the creation of the French welfare state.
This kind of subject matter barely existed in medals of earlier periods. While the language of Art-Nouveau was the diaphanously-clad nymph 'midst leafy boughs, the social landscape of the period reflected the downsized importance of monarchs and generals, and the rise of the professions. More than a few medals, and not just commissioned portrait pieces, acknowledge the social milieu.
NEARLY MINT STATE.