North Yorkshire Moors Collection, Part IV: Coins and Medals

XV: Dutch and French Medals, Cromwell and Tommaso Aniello, c. 1670 (?), a satirical engraved silver medal, unsigned (by P. Aquila or more plausibly P. van Abeele), laureate and draped bust of Cromwell left atop a beer barrel, his coat-of-arms hanging behind on the brewery wall, barrels and brewing equipment at left, cromwellus victor perduellis, rev. massanello vanus es rebellis, Aniello standing three-quarters right with fishing nets, Naples burns in the background, 64mm, 36.55g (Platt I, p.346, type B; MI I, –). Old graze on obverse at 9 o’clock, otherwise good very fine or better and a fascinating piece of exquisite style, excessively rare; the only known specimen in private hands £1,000-£2,000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The North Yorkshire Moors Collection of British Coins.

View
Collection

Provenance: J.G. Murdoch Collection, Part VIII, Sotheby Auction, 14-16 December 1904, lot 991 (part); SNC March 1908 (50799); R.C. and O.M.W. Warner Collection; R.E. Ockenden Collection [from O.M.W.W. 1964]; bt R.E.O.

Exhibition: By Richard Warner at the British Numismatic Society, 28 January 1931.

The only other example, in somewhat inferior condition, is in the British Museum. It has a thicker flan and is signed P.A., and was acquired from Spink in 1920 (almost certainly from the large and important collection of historical medals largely dispersed through the pages of SNC in 1919 and 1920). A similar related engraved medal, also known from two specimens, has Cromwell on horseback, as on his seal, and on the reverse a Turk trampling a cross. One also formed part of Murdoch lot 991, which subsequently changed hands several times via Jacques and Hans Schulman before being acquired by Spink at Peus Auktion 333 (Frankfurt), 6 May 1992; the other, bearing the signature P.A, was lot 398 in Spink Auction 130, 1-2 March 1999