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Three Medals by Leonhard Posch in the Zagreb Archaeological Museum Numismatic Collection
Ivan Mirnik
; Arheološki muzej u Zagrebu
Sažetak
There are four cast-iron medals of large size from the early 19th c. in the Zagreb Archaeological Museum Numismatic Collection. They were catalogued by the Museum director Josip Brunšmid at the time he was compiling new inventories of the considerable collection, but he was unable to identify either the artist or the persons depicted on them. Only one of them, thanks to the inscription on the reverse of the medal, could be partly identified as a grand-duchess of Weimar:" N. VI —1 34/Er(lauchte?).Gr(oss):Herz(ogin) =/v(on)=/Weimar"( Fig. 3). These medals were not signed, therefore their author remained unknown for a long time. The quality of three of them shows they must have been modelled by an excellent medallist. The fourth medal, likewise unsigned, was made by a less skilled artist and thus both the person portrayed and the medallist will remain unknown for a while. As none of these medals were to be found in Major Mijat Sabljar's inventories from the fifties of the 19th c., they might have entered the collection during Don Šime Ljubič's tenure (1867.-1892.). In 2003 the director of the Berlin Numismatic Cabinet Dr. Wolfgang Steguweit presented the writer of this paper with the latest and fundamental book dealing with the oeuvre of the great Austrian Prussian master Leonhard Posch (Finsing, 7 November 1750 — Berlin, 21 June 1831), written by Anne Forschler Tarrasch. For several decades to come, this monograph will be the base for any further study of medals by Posch.
Going to through the vast catalogue, containing as many as 1038 works, three of the iron medals from Zagreb were finally identified. Three important persons in German history of the early 19th c. were portrayed on them 19. st. The first medal is one of several Posch's portraits of the patriotic Prussian queen Luise (Hannover, 10 March 1766 — Hohenzieritz, Strelitz, 19 July 1810, Fig. 1), the second of Marie Pavlovna (15 February 1786 — 23 June 1859), granddaughter of Catherine II the Great of Russia, the hereditary Grand Duchess of Saxonia-Weimar (Fig. 2) and the third is a medal with the portrait of the Prussian statesman Karl August Prince Hardenberg (Essenrode/ Hannover, 31 March 1750 — Genova, 26 November 1822; Fig. 3). None of the medals is dated, but from the aforesaid monograph we can find that the medal of Luise of Prussia was made in 1805, the Hardenberg medal in 1815 and the portrait medal of Marie Pavlovna in c. 1816.
As medallist L Posch was held in very high esteem. He was born on 7 November 1750 in Tyrol, Austria, at the Finsing hamlet (Haasberg, Zillertal). His great talent was discovered by Franz Xaver Nissl (1731 — 1804), an Austrian sculptor of the Baroque period. Posch then became an apprentice of another well-known sculptor of the period, Jonann Baptist Hagenauer (1732 — 1810) in Salzburg, with the financial support of Cardinal Archbishop Sigismund Christoph Count Schrattenbach of Salzburg. Having completed his study, Posch worked in Vienna (1774-1803), attracting the attention of Empress Maria Teresia, who commissioned him to make several sculptures for the Schonbrunn park. Because of poor health he had to abandon monumental sculpture and dedicate himself to small sculpture and medals. Thus in Vienna alone Posch modelled more than 150 portrait medallions. In 1803 he moved to Hamburg, and in 1804 to Berlin, where he remained until 1810, when, following the suggestions of the wellknown artist of the Empire era, Dominique Vivant Denon, he went to Paris. In Paris Posch stayed until Napoleon's fall in 1814. In the summer of 1814 he decided to return to Berlin, where he stayed until his death on 21 June 1831. He was active as professor of modelling with the mint and the china manufacture as well as the Prussian art foundry. Already in 1816 he enjoyed all the privileges of a member of the Academy, but only became a member several years later. His style of producing cast iron medals was imitated by many lesser artists (Fig. 4). The iron medals described are only a small part of the medal collection of the Zagreb Archaeological Museum Numismatic Collection, i.e. of the group of medals made in the Empire style during the early 19 c. There are c. 140 various specimens of such and the present author presented a paper dealing with them at a conference on Napoleonic medals, held in Udine, Italy, in 1997.
Ključne riječi
Posch Leonhard; the medals; The Archaeological museum in Zagreb
Hrčak ID:
148734
URI
Datum izdavanja:
15.12.2005.
Posjeta: 814 *