Medal of Anne of Austria (obverse)
Jean Warin (French, 1604–1672)
1660
- Medium
- bronze
- Classification
- Sculpture
- Dimensions
- Diameter: 6 cm (2 3/8 in.)
- Culture
- France
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- John L. Severance Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
Jean Warin was the foremost medalist in 17th-century France. As the chief designer of coins, his relationship with King Louis XIII was exceptionally close; he convinced the king that commemorative medals were the most important artistic medium for propaganda. Warin revolutionized the production of medals by introducing the raised edge, allowing greater ease in striking medals. This change fueled the shift from casting medals to the more recently invented process of striking, or pressing medals from a die. This work is one of many he composed of Queen Anne of Austria (1601–1666). Although she was born in Spain as the Infanta, or princess, of Spain and Portugal, her title "of Austria" refers to her Hapsburg heritage as well as her title of Archduchess of Austria. The reverse depicts a blooming lily, a symbol of France, and is inscribed "its glories in its divine nourishment," referring to her son, the adolescent King Louis XIV.
