Description
EGYPT
Directoire (1795–1799). Token commemorating the Conquest of Lower Egypt, Year VII (1798), Paris.
Obverse: ‘CONQUEST OF LOWER EGYPT YEAR VII’ in the exergue, with the signature ‘BRENET’. The Nile depicted lying down, with a cornucopia and a sphinx, holding ears of wheat and surrounded by children symbolising the cubits of the river in flood.
Reverse: The Pyramids of Giza, signed DENON DIR.
Lec.35 (Unlisted) – H.cf.850 (33 mm) – Jul.629 – Ess.756 (lot); Silver – 6.95 g - 28 mm - 6 h
Top Pop: this is the finest graded specimen!
PCGS MS62 (56278468).
Ribbed edge. Only minimal marks and scratches. Superb in mint condition.
The Egyptian Campaign took place in July 1798, with the capture of Alexandria on 2 July 1798 (14 Messidor Year VI), followed by Rosetta and then the battles of Rahmanié, Chebreiss and the Battle of the Pyramids on 21 July (3 Thermidor, Year VI). Finally, on 22 July 1798, the army entered Cairo. This campaign would end with the Battle of Aboukir on 25 July 1799, before Bonaparte handed over command to Kléber and returned to France, arriving in Fréjus on 8 October 1799 (16 Vendémiaire, Year VIII). The expedition was accompanied by 167 scholars and scientists, including Redouté, Monge, Berthollet and Dominique Vivant Denon, regarded as a pioneer of Egyptology and who would later become Director-General of Museums. His signature appears on the reverse of this token, which was struck during the Consulate and engraved by Nicolas-Guy-Antoine Brenet. The reverse depicts the Statue of the Nile, commissioned by Louis XIV in 1687, created in Rome by Lorenzo Ottoni and brought to France in 1715 to the Château de Marly (now in the Tuileries). It is itself a copy of the Greco-Roman statue discovered in the Temple of Isis (Vatican Museum). On the reverse, the Nile, the river-god in the form of a bearded man, is surrounded by 16 naked putti representing the 16 royal cubits (8 metres) corresponding to the change in the Nile’s water level during the floods from August to October.
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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