1750 Peace & Prosperity (State Of England) Medal

1750 Peace and Prosperity medal by Jacques-Antione Dassier (1715-1759) This medal, one of the thirteen English medals made while in London, commemorated no particular event but the general state of the Kingdom of Great Britain after the War of Austrian Succession. The few years of peace that followed the Treaty of Aix-la Chapelle were the most prosperous and happy that Europe had ever known. Arts and letters were encouraged and cultivated, manufacturing and commerce flourished, and society was highly polished; the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The reverse depicts Mercury (Commerce) presenting Britannia, seated on the seashore, with a Cornucopia, with Infant Genius measuring a globe and shipping represented in the distance; the inscription reads: "HAE TIBI SUNT ARTES" (These are thy arts).

DASSIER, Jacques-Antione (1715-1759), medallist, was born in Geneva on 15 November 1715, and was the son of Jean Dassier (1676-1763). He received his first lessons in drawing and engraving from his father, and at seventeen was sent to Paris for instruction from Thomas Germain the goldsmith. In 1736 he went to Italy. He stayed at Rome for one year (1737), studied art, and made a medal of Pope Clement XII. At Turin he took the portrait of the king of Sardinia in wax, completing it as a medal on his return to Geneva, where he remained for some time as an assistant to his father. In 1740 Dassier came to England, and there printed proposals for making medals of distinguished living Englishmen. The subscription was four guineas for a set of thirteen medals, or 7 shillings, sixpence for single specimens. The dies were engraved in London, but the medals were struck off at Geneva, 'because (says G. Vertue) here is not engines allowed for that purpose, or because it is cheaper.'

In 1741 Dassier was appointed assistant engraver to The Royal Mint, with a salary of £200 a year and lodging. The duties were very light. He visited Geneva in 1743 (again in 1745) and, on his way, at Paris, made a wax portrait of Montesquieu, from the life, producing a medal from it in 1753. About 1756, George II permitted him to leave England for St. Petersburg, where he worked on the coinage of the empress Elizabeth, and made medals of Count Schouwalow and of the empress. The Russian climate affected his health during his three years' stay, and he was returning to England, when he died at Copenhagen, in the house of Count Bernstorf, on 2 October 1759. The statement in the 'Medallic Illustrations' (ii. 723; cf. Blavignac, Armorial genevois, 313-14) that he died in 1780 seems erroneous. Dassier was a less rapid and prolific workman than his father Jean, but his medals are better executed, though he seldom attempts elaborate reverse designs. His signatures are I. [or J.] A. Dassier; I. Dassier (rare); Ja. Ant. Dassier; A. Dassier; A. Das.