Printed Auction 40 Lot 145

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Early Renaissance profile bust
Printed Auction 40 Lot 145

Henry VII. 1485-1509. AR groat, tentative issue. 3.04 gm. 26 mm. Profile bust, type IVa. Upside-down anchor i.m. Tower mint. His crowned bust right, crown with one plain arch, one arch with four crockets each side / CIVITAS LONDON. S. 2254. N. 1743. Mint State.

Bought Spink, 2011, £1750 (tag).

This was a coin that I was shown at Spink a decade ago, back when travel was possible. It is as close to mint state as I have ever seen for this era. Its freshness jumped out and in hand it is particularly impressive. AD

 

Renaissance portraiture comes to English coinage

The reign of the first of the Tudor kings, Henry VII, was well along before realistic portraiture became a part of the English series. Fine portraiture on coinage had appeared in Renaissance Europe several decades earlier, but other than the 1484-1488 issue of Scotland’s James III with its striking long-haired half-left-facing-bust, realism did not appear in British coinage until 1504 with a testoon and a groat.
 
The new type of coinage was in part a response to the clipping common with the facing bust issues, and apparently in or about 1504 Henry VII is reported to have ordered a new coinage, with his portrait, “to be impressed.”  At the same time, the world was changing—the Renaissance saw an explosion of exploration by Columbus and Magellan, and a revolution in art by Michelangelo and da Vinci, and this realistic approach to the design of English coins was probably seen as well past due.
 
This piece in our current sale is a remarkable example of the “tentative issue,” a coinage meant to test acceptance, to prepare the way for a major shift in coinage style. The facing bust issues continued for a while as this new approach to design was being gradually introduced (for comparison, see the last of the medieval facing bust issues in lot 144). In addition to the profile bust, the key design feature is a crown with two bands. When the coin design became fully adopted, the crown was given three bands around the head.
 
This particular piece occasioned a bit of excitement from a knowledgeable collector and client who observed the unique nature of what appears to be a mustache and beard that extends along the lower cheek and jawline—much like many modern trimmed beards. Would that it were so! There was a brief experiment with the design of the coin when tressures around the portrait were added, but it was unappealing and only four examples of that design survived.
 
A bearded piece? No. After extensive study of the published dies and close inspection of the coin with my binocular microscope, I have decided that the beard is the effect of a die break on a known die.
 
But when you think about it, it would have made an even more handsome bit of art on a coin. And it would have predated by 40 years the full bushy beard that depicts the aging Henry VIII.
 
Nonetheless, this is a spectacular example of a rare and important coin issue.

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