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Not currently on display at the V&A

Medal

ca. 1450 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

This is a bronze medal made by Pisanello of Verona in Italy in about 1450. The obverse of this medal represents Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan, and the reverse shows three mounted knights.

Pisanello (Antonio Pisano) (b.ca. 1395; d. 1455) who was born in Pisa or Verona, by 1395 was an Italian painter, draughtsman and medallist. His richly decorative frescoes, courtly and elegantly painted portraits and highly original portrait medals made him one of the most popular artists of the day. He travelled extensively and worked for several Italian courts, at Mantua, Ferrara, Pavia, Milan and Naples. Many of his paintings have been lost or damaged, making a reconstruction of his career difficult. He is now better known as a medallist. Two-sided Renaissance portrait medals were a form developed by Pisanello, and commemorated individuals or events and functioned as gifts and mementoes. They were inspired by the Roman coins, with their portraits of rulers and allegorical representations on the reverse, excavated all over Italy and eagerly collected by humanist scholars.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Materials and techniques
Bronze
Brief description
Medal, bronze, Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan, by Pisanello, Italian, ca. 1450
Dimensions
  • Diameter: 10.16cm
Object history
Bought from the Soulages Collection in 1865, for £3.
Subjects depicted
Summary
This is a bronze medal made by Pisanello of Verona in Italy in about 1450. The obverse of this medal represents Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan, and the reverse shows three mounted knights.

Pisanello (Antonio Pisano) (b.ca. 1395; d. 1455) who was born in Pisa or Verona, by 1395 was an Italian painter, draughtsman and medallist. His richly decorative frescoes, courtly and elegantly painted portraits and highly original portrait medals made him one of the most popular artists of the day. He travelled extensively and worked for several Italian courts, at Mantua, Ferrara, Pavia, Milan and Naples. Many of his paintings have been lost or damaged, making a reconstruction of his career difficult. He is now better known as a medallist. Two-sided Renaissance portrait medals were a form developed by Pisanello, and commemorated individuals or events and functioned as gifts and mementoes. They were inspired by the Roman coins, with their portraits of rulers and allegorical representations on the reverse, excavated all over Italy and eagerly collected by humanist scholars.
Bibliographic references
  • Inventory of Art Objects acquired in the Year 1865. Inventory of the Objects in the Art Division of the Museum at South Kensington, arranged According to the Dates of their Acquisition. Vol. 1. London : Printed by George E. Eyre and William Spottiswoode for H.M.S.O., 1868, p. 38
  • Robinson, John Charles. Catalogue of the Soulages Collection. London: Chapman & Hall, 1856, p. 145
  • cf. Turckheim-Pey, Sylvie de. [Medal entries] In: Pisanello: Le Peintre aux Sept Vertus. Paris: Musée de Louvre, 1996. pp. 205, 215, cat. no. 127. Exhibition held Musée de Louvre, Paris, 1996
  • Hill, G. F. A Corpus of Italian Medals of the Renaissance before Cellini. London: British Museum, 1920, no. 21f
  • Curtis, Penelope, Depth of Field: the place of relief in the time of Donatello, Leeds: Henry Moore Institute, 2004
Collection
Accession number
687-1865

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Record createdMay 6, 2008
Record URL
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