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New Member
United States
2 Posts |
I always thought it would be cool to see what "Miss Liberty" from various coins would look like if she were drawn as a real person. What would the Peace dollar lady look like? The Morgan dollar lady? The lady from the 1795 $5 gold? Their coin engravings are nice, but how would they look if drawn as full face-on portraits? Has anyone ever drawn such images? Maybe for a Coinage article? I can't locate anything on the web. |
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Bedrock of the Community
Australia
21786 Posts |
graveymaster2:  to the CCF! Interesting question for your first post! The allegorical figures of Liberty on U.S. coins are inspired by the art of the ancient Greeks in a quest to achieve an idealized, almost godesslike portrait. That I believe, is at the heart of classic U.S. coin design. Nevertheless in most cases, the artists allowed themselves to be also be inspired by an actual human sitter to base their plasters on. That is why Liberty can appear to be a different person on different designs. Modern coin profiles of real people usually involve at least one sitting with the artist, which is then assisted with photographs. The sitter approves the final design before it is committed to the coinage. The various portraits of H.M. the Queen find their way onto British and Commonwealth coinage in this way. The portraits are more realistic and less idealized as a result. Roman coins were done a little differently. Plaster busts of the new Emperor were sent to the mints across the Empire. The celators then cut each obverse working die, with continuous visual reference to the supplied plaster bust. A surprising amount of visual conformity in the circulating coins was achieved from the far flung mints across the Empire. That, despite the fact that they never used master dies and punches. We can be reasonably sure that because of this visual conformity on Roman coins, that the Emperors did indeed look something like the portraits of them on their coins. Edited by sel_69l
01/08/2015 12:07 am
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Moderator
 Australia
16827 Posts |
The designs of allegorical figures, such as Liberty on US coins, are usually modelled by real people. For well-documented coinage series (such as US coins), we know who those real people were. So we don't really have to imagine it; we know what the models actually looked like and in many instances have multiple images of them from all sorts of angles. The "Pea ce dollar lady", for example: the artist who designed the coin was Anthony de Francisci, who used his wife Theresa as the model; do a Google image search for "Theresa di Francisci" and you'll find lots of pictures of her. Of course, sometimes the artists didn't do too good a job at replicating the human being modelled. I recall seeing somewhere a CGI image of what the "Seated Liberty lady" might look like if she stood up and turned around to face the front: all lopsided and deformed, with her right shoulder nearly longer than her arm. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
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New Member
 United States
2 Posts |
Thanks for the information! Never knew about Theresa di Francisci, and I found a picture of her today. I still think it would be cool for an artist to draw realistic portraits of the ladies that adorn our coins. I mean, who wouldn't want to see what these two ladies would look like as real people? It would no doubt be hilarious!   |
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Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
You'd probably be surprised how many of those are modeled after real people, then. The Morgan is an actual portrait as well, as is (I think that's the coin, it was David Rittenhouse's wife) the Flowing Hair Dollar. Given that Robert Scot also did that $5 gold, it's not unreasonable to think she might be a portrait too. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7840 Posts |
Edited by oih82w8
01/08/2015 10:34 am
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1208 Posts |
I see Drew Barrymore on the Morgan...
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1208 Posts |
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Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
Quote:
I see Drew Barrymore on the Morgan... Maybe after she was successful.  Anna was considered a prototypical beauty in her day, which is why Morgan felt her such a perfect candidate as the model for his new coin. The design process for coins of that era was a very personal one, each totally the creation of one person's aesthetic although subject to modification before approval. It makes subjects like this an interesting look into the designer's mindset and that of the times, studying what they chose to immortalize in coinage. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3253 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2368 Posts |
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Replies: 10 / Views: 2,782 |
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Posted 01/08/2015 01:36 am
