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an old silver coin with a bust of a man on ita close up of a coin with a man ' s face on it
MDC Monnaies de Collection

1370 - GERMANY MEDALS - Engraving. Medallion, Dominique Vivant Deno…
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Estimate €100
Sale commission
Description
GERMANY MEDALS - Engraving. Medallion, Dominique Vivant Denon, by Léonard Posch, undated (c. 1806), Berlin. Forrer IV, p. 672 – NM Wrocław, X-15535; Steel – 45.68 g – 65.5 mm – 12 h Cast steel, a few bubbles in the fields. Superb. “In many respects, Vivant Denon’s presence in several German cities during the winter of 1806–1807 and in Vienna three years later was therefore hailed by artistic and intellectual circles as a sensation. As evidence of the respect commanded by his position and the impact of his stay in Prussia, a medal bearing his effigy was produced by a German artist from Berlin, the engraver Léonard Posch, who, it seems, went on to produce a second portrait of the director a little later. The commissioner’s fame explains the relative abundance of accounts recounting his visit, and the verbal contortions of the curators who, despite having suffered the dismantling of their collections, nonetheless sympathised with Denon: ‘Had the task he was required to carry out here not been so detestable, I would have been very happy to get to know him better,’ Emperius admitted in 1816, at a time when it was by no means advisable to express one’s pro-French sympathies. Ten years earlier, less than a week after the Prussian defeat at Jena and Auerstedt, Denon was welcomed into Goethe’s home in Weimar, just a few kilometres from the battlefield, and the meeting between the two men gives a sense of the atmosphere in which the prestigious French commissioner travelled through the defeated regions.” [Savoy, Bénédicte. ‘Chapter IV. Napoleon’s Eye’. *Patrimoine annexé*, Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, 2003]
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About the sale A selection of coins and medals from the collection of an amateur collector from Burgundy (Part 2)
Auction location
Auction time 09/05/2026 at 9:00 AM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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