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Auction: 7023 - The Glenister Collection of British Coins & other Ancient, English & Foreign Coins & Comm Medals
Lot: 434

Portugal, Order of Christ, Commander´s Neck Badge, gilt and enamel, 62mm. x 42mm., mounted and framed with suspension ring and small piece of faded riband, extremely fine Estimate £ 150-200 In 1835 the Portuguese Government applied to the British Government to allow William Wyon to proceed to Lisbon for the purpose of making a model of Her Most Faithful Majesty Donna Maria to be used for the obverse of a new coinage for Portugal. Nicolas Carlisle in "A Memoir of the Life and Works of William Wyon" published in 1837 says: ´the consent of the British Government being obtained and his medical advisors being of the opinion that his health might be improved by a sea voyage, Mr Wyon embarked on the twenty-second of September, and, after a very tempestuous voyage, arrived in safety at Lisbon. His stay in that capital appears to have been satisfactory in the highest degree. The model of Her Majesty was esteemed to be a most happy likeness - and the youthful Queen was so well pleased that she graciously commanded Mr Wyon to execute a large medal from it, to be used in the intended coinage. After an agreeable residence of six weeks in the city of Lisbon, Mr Wyon requested the permission of Her Majesty to return to England, which being graciously complied with, our artist, in the month of November, stepped again upon his native soil, to the great joy of his family, and amidst the congratulatin of his friends, for the consumate manner in which he had upholden the taste, talent and dignity of the unshackled genius of a Briton, and he now reaps a proud reward in the new series of coins, which he has engraved for the Portuguese Dominions.´ (quoted in Forrer, Biographical Dictionary of Medallists, vol.6, p.656,)

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£300