The Peak of Gothic Medallic Art

312, Lot: 23. Estimate $150000. Sold for $230000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

TUDOR. Henry VII. 1485-1509. AV Sovereign (41mm, 15.20 g, 1h). Type IV. Tower mint; im: lis/dragon. Struck 1502-1504. (lis) hЄnRICVS x DЄI x GRΛ x RЄX x ΛnGL x ЄT x FRΛn x DnS x hIB’ n’, Henry enthroned facing, holding scepter in left hand, globus cruciger in right; lis in fields / (dragon) : IhЄSVS : ΛVTЄM : TRΛnSIЄnS : PЄR : MЄDIVM : ILLORVM : IBΛT : (mullet) : (double saltire stops), royal shield within Tudor rose. P&W Type IV, obv. die 2; SCBI 23 (Ashmolean), 79–80; Schneider 550 (same dies); North 1692/1; SCBC 2175. Good VF, attractive red-orange tone, small area of minor doubling. Struck on a broad flan. Very rare.

From the Clearwater Collection. Ex Spink 206 (1 December 2010), lot 895; J. Perley Storer Collection (Spink 111, 21 November 1995), lot 148; R.D. Beresford-Jones Collection (Spink 29, 2 June 1983), lot 23; L.A. Basmadjief Collection (Glendining, 15 July 1953), lot 22; V.J.E. Ryan Collection (Glendining, 28 June 1950), lot 106; Richard Manley Foster Collection (Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge, 3 November 1903), lot 68.

First issued in 1489 and struck in very limited numbers – only two for every pound of gold – the sovereigns of Henry VII represent ‘probably the peak of Gothic medallic art’ which, with the arrival at the mint of the engraver Alexander de Bruchsal, was ‘transformed and revitalized by the new ideas of the Renaissance’ (Potter and Winstanley, ‘The Coinage of Henry VII’). Grierson and Metcalf have demonstrated that the prototypes for the earliest of Henry’s sovereigns (types I and II) were the large gold issues of England’s key European allies in the containment of France, namely the real d’or struck by the Emperor Maximillian in the Low Countries and the multiple enriques of Castile. The exquisite engraving of Alexander de Brugsal can be seen in the later sovereigns of types III, IV (as is the piece offered here) and V with their well-proportioned and characterful depictions of the King enthroned.

That these sovereigns were intended to cultivate the image of the wealth and majesty of the Tudor dynasty both at home and abroad is without doubt. We find the treasurer for the King’s Chamber recording the presentation at court of sovereigns to the ambassador of Hungary in May 1502, and the chamberlain of the King of Castile in 1506 (see C.E. Challis, “The Fist Gold Sovereigns,” Spink Numismatic Circular XCVIII.10 [December 1990], p. 347).