1810

[elverno]

1810 Statue de Desaix, France

Laskey CXVI

Bramsen 976

d'Essling 1321

 

41mm Link

 

This is a lead trial strike. Typically the engraver would use splashes of tin on a workbench and press their die into the splash as they worked to check their progress. Those tin splashes would get swept to the floor and at the end of the day thrown back into a pot to be remelted. For that reason tin strikes are very rare. From the surviving ones we know that Parisian engravers typically carved the people nude in order to get the proportions correct and then carved deeper in order to clothe them.

 

Lead trial strikes are from near the end of the engraving process. Blank lead planchets were prepared and struck with the unhardened die in a work press. They would then be sent to supervisors or other interested parties as a check before hardening the dies. As a result much more of them survive. This one is oddly darkened on the struck side but the expected dull lead look on the off side. They may have been toying with this patina for the production strikes but the actual production strikes are the typical chocolate brown.

[elverno]

1810 Mariage à Paris avec Marie-Louise, France

Bramsen 965

Edwards 555

d'Essling 1297

 

40mm Link

 

This tin medal is so rare that though there are two varieties this is the only one I've ever seen outside of reference books.

[elverno]

1810 Pompe Funebre du Duc de Montebello, France

Bramsen 971

Laskey CXIX

d'Essling 1314

 

68mm Link

 

The different color of the sides is the result of decades sitting in a presentation case.

[bill]

1810 Le Maréchal Oudinot, France

Bramsen 1053

 

42mm Link

 

 

I'm not entirely sure why, but I like this style of bust (with the torso facing the viewer and the head turned). There are many fine representations you've shown us in these posts, but something about this style makes it stand out. Maybe because its different, but there is something more to it, more "life-like."