Louis Xiv Medal (1702/23).

This is a French medal dedicated to the recruitment of 800 young sailors into the Navy during the reign of Louis XIV, who is depicted on the obverse. By Jean Mauger/Jean Dollin. Dollin was a medalist active from 1680 in Paris. He assisted Jean Mauger with the Uniform Series of the Histoire Metallique du roi Louis XIV. Having settled at Paris in 1677, Mauger was primarily engaged on the medallic series of Louis XIV, first engraving large medals for the Royal Series, then engraving the entire first Uniform Series of Louis XIV between 1695 and 1703. Mauger executed the obverse portraits for the Uniform Series after designs by Antoine Coypel and was assisted on the series by Jean Dollin, Thomas Bernard, Hercule Breton, Joseph Roettiers and Jerome Roussel. After 1702 he worked, assisted by Dollin, Roeg, Le Blanc, Benjamin Duvivier, and Roettiers, on the reformed Uniform Series, which remained unfinished at the death of Louis XIV.

Jean Mauger (1648-1722) was Engraver of Medals and Medallist of the King. He is noted largely for his extensive medallic series of medals of Louis XIV [Histoire Metallique (Medailles sur les Principaux Evenements du Regne de Louis le Grand avec des explications historiques par l'Academie Royale des Medailles et Inscriptions. A Paris, de l'Imprimerie royale, 1702)]. Mauger's work may be divided into three periods. In the first period (1684-1695), he engraved the Histoire Metallique (this work was never completed). During the second period (1695-1702) he was asked by the Academie des Arts et Belles Lettres to engrave the complete uniform series of the medals of Louis XIV. Mauger engraved 200 medals during this period. In the third period (1703-1722), he was asked to modify and reform his Art work. Accordingly, medals of the same subject, but which are slightly different, are extant. Moreover, the dates of the events represented on Mauger's medals hardly ever correspond with those of their execution.

This medal is from a series of medals that were struck to commemorate the achievements of the reign of Louis XVI. The series was first published in 1702. It includes medals from his birth onward. The series was expanded and reissued in 1723. Sets were presented to the crowned heads of Europe, but were also available to the public.


Louis XIV was the first ruler to produce a unified series of medals marking the events of his reign. In fact, in the course of his long reign, he produced three such series, and established an academy specifically to invent the Latin legends and classical imagery for these pieces. The greatest numismatic artists of the day engraved the dies for the portrait obverses and for the reverse events. The academy selected eight painted portraits of the king at various ages, which were drawn by Antoine Coypel and engraved as obverse dies by Jean Mauger, who was also responsible for the engraving of many of the reverses.

The 286 medals of the 41 mm. size were issued as a group in 1702 along with a deluxe folio volume entitled Medailles sur les principaux evenements du règne de Louis le Grand, avec des explications historiques illustrating each and explaining the legends and iconography. In the next two decades some of the reverses were revised, and in 1723 a new catalogue illustrated the revised medals as well as those created for the last years of the reign.