| Description |
JACOPO NIZZOLA DA TREZZO (c. 1514-1589)
Mary Tudor (1516-1558), Queen of England, 1553-1558, gold medal, MARIA I REG ANGL FRANC ET HIB FIDEI DEFENSATRIX (Mary I, Queen
of England, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith), bust left, wearing an ornately embroidered gown, a brooch with pendant pearl at
the breast, and a cap adorned with jewels, with a veil falling down the back; below, signed IAC TREZ, rev., CECIS VISVS TIMIDIS QVIES (Sight to
the blind, tranquility to the fearful), a figure of Peace, wearing antique drapery and a radiate crown, seated on a throne facing threequarters right, holding palm and olive branches in her raised right hand and, in her left, a flaming torch with which she sets fire to a pile of
arms and armour laid out before her; below the throne are a cube with two clasped hands on one of its sides and a pair of scales
(symbolizing Stability, Unity and Justice); to the left, a group of suppliant figures is beset by storms; to the right are other figures and a
round temple; above, rays issuing from a cloud; in the foreground, a river, 67.7mm, 151.80g (Attwood 80a; Scher 54 (both describing the
British Museum gold example with a diameter of 69 mm and weight of 183.48g); MI I, 72, 20; Armand I, 241, 3; van Loon I, 10; Bargello
725 (silver, 67.5mm); Middeldorf & Steibral pl. 72 (silver, 68mm, ex Chigi collection); Attwood 80b (silver, 66mm, British Museum); B?rner
776 (bronze, 67.5mm), with a black inventory number R2463 inked on the reverse, some field scratches but a superb contemporary cast,
one of only two known in gold. Ex The late Baroness Batsheva de Rothschild collection, Christie's, 14th December 2000, lot 36; the inventory number R2463 on the reverse. Batsheva de Rothschild may have acquired the medal by inheritance and its previous owner was most probably Baron Alphonse de Rothrscild (1827-1905) who, it has been suggested, bought it in a lot of twenty-two works of art from the Viennese Habsburgs; The Estate of John R. Gaines, Morton & Eden, 21 April 2005, lot 11; exhibited alongside the other known gold medal of Mary Tudor at the exhibition Renaissance Faces, The National Gallery, London, 15 October 2008-18 January 2009, exhibition catalogue p. 284, 98. |
