The Silich Collection of Historical and Art Medals (Part I)

NETHERLANDS/ENGLAND, Gay van der Meer, 1991, a cast bronze medal by G.H. Steyn for the British Art Medal Society, bust right, rev. Veritas standing facing, holding wreath and palm branch, legend on central foreground, 86mm, 430.04g (Attwood 74; The Medal 19, p.114). Extremely fine, green patina, as made, scarce £80-£100

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Silich Collection of Historical and Art Medals.

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bt Simmons, September 2016

Edition of 50. Gay van der Meer (1924-2014), brother of the physicist and Nobel Prize winner Simon van der Meer, is fondly remembered as the multilingual curator of the coin cabinet at the Rijksmuseum in The Hague, a position she held from 1959 to 1988. A strong promoter of the modern art medal and the activities of FIDEM and the VPK, the reverse of this medal alludes to van der Meer’s lifelong fascination with the work of Martin and John Holtzhey, medallists based on Amsterdam’s Herengracht, and is partly taken from the original 1752 prize medal awarded by the Hollandse Maatschappij voor Wetenschappen (Dutch Society of Sciences).