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Auction: 22006 - Coins and Commemorative Medals - Summer Auction
Lot: 396

"Cramped and tawdry, far from decorative and as difficult to characterise as a carrot" - A Remarkable Preparatory Pencil Drawing for a Pattern Shilling, by reverred 'Israel in Egypt' artist, draughtsman and Ashantee Medal designer, Sir Edward John Poynter, 1st Baronet, GCVO, PRA (20 March 1836 – 26 July 1919), for the Royal Academy's 1891 "Competition for a Redesign of the British Coinage" following the outcry over the widely condemned Boehm 'Jubilee' coinage (vide Sir John Craig's History of the Royal Mint; cf. BM 1970.0711.14.1), of great numismatic significance and of fine artistic style, believed unique in private hands, the other family archive accessioned into the British Museum in 1970

As early as 1888, consideration had been given to replacing the Jubilee coinage with a new design, but officials preferred to wait. until after the death of its designer Sir Joseph Boehm in 1890. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Goschen, soon thereafter appointed a Committee on the Design of Coins to consider the matter. At its first meeting, on 12 February 1891, the committee recommended that the Double Florin not be further struck. They felt that as the Crown would continue to be coined, two large silver pieces were wholly unnecessary. The Government agreed, as the minting of the Double Florin had already been suspended since August 1890. It was further resolved "to examine the designs on the various coins put into circulation in the year 1887, and suggest improvements in those designs; to make such recommendations on the subject as might seem desirable; and to report what coins, if any, should have values expressed on them in words and figures".


At its second gathering, on 27 February 1891, the Committee chaired by the Liberal MP, Sir John Lubbock; David Powell, Deputy Governor of the Bank of England; Richard Blaney Wade, Chairman of the National Provincial Bank; Sir Frederic Leighton, President of the Royal Academy; Sir John Evans, President of the British Numismatic Society; and Sir Charles Fremantle, Deputy Master of the Royal Mint, considered an open competition for new coinage designs, but instead decided to invite several artists - all Royal Academicians or associate members of the Academy to submit proposals. The invited artists were asked to submit two portraits of Victoria, both left-facing, since the Royal Mint was contemplating not using the same portrait on the Florin and Half Crown to avoid confusion between the denominations, as had been the Gothic and 'Young Head' distinction on the specie prior to 1887. Entrants were offered £150 for their labours, an amount the Illustrated London News considered inadequate, and two artists subsequently declined the invitation on this basis. The competition had a deadline of 31 October 1891, and on 27 November, the Committee met at the Bank of England to consider them. The obverse designs submitted by the sculptor, Sir Thomas Brock, were selected.

The Committee opted to retain Benedetto Pistrucci's Saint George and the Dragon design for the reverse of the Crown, Sovereign, Double Sovereign, and Five-Pound piece, as well as extending it to the Half Sovereign. For the Sixpence and Half crown, designs by Brock were selected, though he had originally intended them for the Shilling and Florin. Instead for these coins, designs by Edward John Poynter were selected. The committee's decision-making process is unclear, though Goschen later stated that Leighton's influence had predominated. At the committee's next meeting on 23 December 1891, it was decided to ask Brock to alter his first obverse in imitation of the Ashanti Medal of 1874. The Ashanti Medal was to be fused with Brock's pre-existing design to create the 'Old Head', however little change was required of his second obverse. Both sculptors were ultimately required to make slight changes to their reverse designs, which they did in time for the reverses to be approved at the final committee meeting on 11 March 1892. The Committee recommended that a second portrait of Victoria be used for the Florin, but this was personally rejected by Queen Victoria, who thought it unlikely that anyone would distinguish the two denominations in that manner. Instead, for the third time in its 50 years of service, the new florin was made slightly smaller in diameter.



On 30 January 1893, the new coins were proclaimed current, with Fremantle displayin the new coins for the press at the Royal Mint. The immediate reaction was notably more positive than the Jubilee coinage had been six years previously. The Birmingham Daily Post reported that "the result is a distinct success ... Her Majesty's features have a most pleasing expression", whilst The Pall Mall Gazette noted that, "it would be damning them with faint praise merely to say that they are of superior appearance to the Jubilee issue", and that though the use of the power to include the Empress of India title was belated, it was unquestionably valid, since British coins were legal tender in the colonies." The Lancaster Gazetteer wrote on 8 February 1893: "The new coinage starts at a great advantage, for it supplants some of the most unfortunate designs that the Mint has ever put in circulation. In a few days' time it will be in everybody's hands." The Daily News concluded: "the new coinage is an immense improvement upon its predecessor. A Greek artist would have given his approval to Mr. Brock's design of the Queen's head. In place of that ridiculous topknot toy crown of the Jubilee period, Mr. Brock puts a simple, perfectly becoming tiara, over the back part of which and down to the shoulders droops a veil in light, graceful folds. There, at last, is something you can look at without laughing. The portrait is excellent. As for the tiara, it is the ornament which her Majesty habitually wears on State occasions. It is the ornament she would wear this 31st of January if she were opening Parliament in person.


However not all approved of the new designs, the Liberal Unionist MP, James Parker Smith led the revolt. He stated in the House of Commons that the new Sovereigns reminded him of "the whist counters that could be purchased at twenty for tuppence... anyone who was conversant with coins would be quite unsatisfied with it." He concluded: "a great deal too much was attempted to be crowded into the design". The painter, Philip Wilson Steer agreed on this point, identifying that the Queen's necklace, earring and orders gave the new obverse "a certain tawdry look", but that especial criticism was reserved for Poynter's designs, which "were cramped, with the lettering on the Shilling oversized". Victoria herself may have been dissatisfied with the new obverse, for the new chancellor, William Harcourt, wrote to her on 1 February 1893 expressing "his entire concurrence in Your Majesty's View that the Queen's head in the new coinage leaves much to be desired both in likeness and execution". There was further objection from Wales to the exclusion of any emblem of that country from the coinage, given the depiction of symbols of England, Scotland and Ireland, and some wanted a leek or dragon included. John Leighton of the Society of Antiquaries, though, stated that he found the leek "far from decorative and as difficult to characterise as a carrot". Nevertheless Fremantle deemed the new obverse "almost the popular portrait of the Queen" and praised De Saulles for his part in "the favourable reception of coins both by experts and by the public generally."

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