Coins In Art (v2.0; Evergreen)

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As it turns out, I seem to spend a bit of time in museums, and while I have sporadically described numismatically-relevant paintings previously in the museum thread http://goccf.com/t/301900), I'm now thinking that this topic deserves a separate evergreen thread within CCF.

I would like to acknowledge that in 2015, @davec14 started up a similar "Coins in Art" thread http://goccf.com/t/245866) here on CCF. I'm happy to reanimate that thread rather than starting a version 2 if the mods prefer. For those who are interested in this subject, I see that several other forums have similar threads, including forums.collectors.com and World of Coins. I also note that we have an excellent thread detailing the use of coins in movies http://goccf.com/t/84257).

My vision for this thread is to include photos of paintings or other visual art that include coins or banknotes. To avoid overwhelming this thread with military paintings, medals and other exonumia will be excluded. I plan to include as much information about the painting's location, date, creator, media as is posted, along with overall and close-up pics of the coins. When possible, I'll speculate on what coins might be pictured.

Lastly, just to be clear, I'm hoping that others will join in and add their own posts to this thread.

"The Finding of Joseph's Cup in Benjamin's Sack" was painted by Nicholas de Poilly in 1698 and currently resides in Dublin at the National Gallery of Ireland. Painted in the Classicist style, it shows the scene in the Old Testament where Joseph has hidden his silver cup in the grain sack of his youngest brother. Mixed in with the cup and grains, you can see several coins.

From Genesis 44:

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Fill the men's sacks with as much food as they can carry, and put each man's silver in the mouth of his sack. Then put my cup, the silver one, in the mouth of the youngest one's sack, along with the silver for his grain.

"A Fiddler" was painted by Rista Vukanovic in 1896 and is located in Belgrade at the National Museum of Serbia. It is oil paint on canvas and shows a blind musician playing for alms. Despite the title of this piece, I believe that the instrument is more accurately called a vielle (sorta like a lute or the hurdy-gurdy). His upturned hat contains several copper and silver coins. As I understand, this story dates back to the 16th Century or earlier and is an important national folktale in Serbia, but I would be happy if someone provided further context.

I don't have any 16th Century Serbian coins, but here is a Half Denar from the mid-14th Century that may give us some idea of the sort of coins given to the blind fiddler.

Super cool, I view coins as art, now I can view art with coins...thanks..

Thx guys!

I suspect that the subject of Jesus chasing away money changers from the temple will be a common image on this thread. Here is Rembrandt van Rijn's take on this event. This etching hangs at the National Museum of Serbia in Belgrade and dates to 1635. Amid the chaos and outrage, you can see one of the moneychangers protectively clutching a sack of coins as the table starts to keel over.

@Spence, that painting is interesting as it shows that artists are not numismatists. The event illustrated took place 100s of years before the first coins!

Uros Predic painted "Fugitives from Herzegovina" in 1889. This oil-on-canvas painting captures the diaspora of that time, but honestly could have been painted more recently. To be sure the clothing and adornment (such as the necklace and headgear comprising looped or holed silver and gold coins) have changed, but this part of Eastern Europe is struggling with simultaneous emigration of young people away from Serbia and an influx of refugees into Serbia from Syria and elsewhere. This painting hangs at the National Museum of Serbia in Belgrade.

Here is an example of an early 19th Century Tunisian 8 Kharub that was looped for use in jewelry.

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The event illustrated took place 100s of years before the first coins!

@oriole, hmm I'm confused. Wouldn't this event have occurred sometime around AD 25-30?

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@oriole, hmm I'm confused. Wouldn't this event have occurred sometime around AD 25-30?

@Spence, the money changers, yes, about 30 AD.

"finding of Benjamin's cup" would date prior to the Exodus, before 1500 BC according to one chronology.

So coins are very much anachronistic in that painting.

Helpful clarification.

Indeed, historical accuracy is sometimes not a priority (also being a more modern invention?). In looking for paintings of historical figures who appear on coins (monarchs), I often find later paintings of the person in which details on the clothing are wrong. This is also true of die engravers, for instance, that image of Balboa on Panama coins.

Great idea for a thread ... I recall on another similar thread, we were in some cases even able to identify the specific coins in the painting.

Edited by tdziemia
09/18/2019 07:48 am

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thx @jbuck! And yes now I understand @oriole. Something about the timeline isn't quite right for there to be such nice coins for an event happening that long ago. @tdz, I think that there are some that I'll be adding where such a thing is possible.

Here is Kenji Nakahashi's 1984 chromogenic print, "The White House". It is located at the MFA in Houston TX.

I was just checking those old paintings to see if there are any Mercury dimes there.

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Here is Kenji Nakahashi's 1984 chromogenic print, "The White House". It is located at the MFA in Houston TX.

Very nice!

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