FOREWORD

At least since Narcissus fell in love with his own image, portraits have had an almost magical fascination for Man, and that spell continues unbroken today. Perhaps in some final analysis they challenge the transience of human existence. Over the centuries portraiture has changed, if not developed, in terms of its aims and the influences to which it has been subject, and has served the several needs and ends of royalty, nobility, the rising middle classes, families and lovers, demagogues, institutions and other groups and hierarchies, including, largely through the medium of photography, the poor.

The demands of different ages and ambitions have resulted in portraits being variously iconic, representative, honorific, talismanic, fictive or commemorative analogues. Perhaps most resonant of individual identity are 'loyal' resemblances (though more or less flattering, more or less reflective of the outer and of the inner man); others are symbols of position and power, and of social status, visual credentials, even objects of worship or revulsion. More recently portraiture has served the aesthetics of differing artistic schools, such as the realist, impressionist, naturalist and expressive secessions. And then there are the humiliations of caricature. Gesture, costume and setting have played their parts in moulding the various traditions, and the changing nature of the art and of patronage have altered the commercial contracts and psychological transactions between the artist, the sitter and spectator, which in turn have affected the nature of the product. Creative people have always been among the most challenging, almost sacral, subjects for the portraitist, bearing both the gravamen of their Art and of their public roles -- sometimes also a hint of their desire for privacy.

For the admirer or collector of the outpourings of the creative spirit in man, the portrait is a form of visual biography, essential to a full comprehension of the personality and therefore of the work. Aquinas said that man cannot understand without images. The face is the prime mark of identity; without it our sense is fragmented, ill-defined, dehumanised. We need the human context or the work remains something of an abstraction. Without this mnemonic context our appreciation is impoverished. It affects our ability to make friends of our heroes.

'…come to this hallowed place / Where my friends' portraits hang and look thereon... / Think where man's glory most begins and ends, / And say my glory was I had such friends.' (W.B. Yeats, 'The Municipal Gallery Revisited')

The Paul Niggl Collection

This catalogue includes a number of items from the largest collection of medallic portraits of composers and musicians ever assembled, which I acquired in the last year and am pleased to offer to clients in groups or as single items, including a number as single items herein. The collection was begun by Karl Andorfer and Richard Epstein and was published as Musica in Nummis in 1907. It was subsequently purchased by Paul Niggl of Amsterdam, who continued to add to it and in 1964 published Musiker Medaillen based on the collection. Especially notable are a number of portrait medals by:

Pierre-Jean David d'Angers (1788-1856)

David defined the tradition of the standing portrait for both historical and contemporary personalities, made the definitive break with international Neo-classicism and as the creator of some six hundred portraits was the most prolific of Western portraitists, five hundred or more of them being medallions. 'The great master was the first to revive the medallic art as understood in the fifteenth century, and to give to his portraits of bronze, expression, reality and life' (Biographical Dictionary of Medallists, compiled by L. Forrer). His bust of Paganini (1830-1833) is 'arguably the greatest of Romanticism' (The Romantics to Rodin). Authoritative critics and intellectuals during his lifetime pronounced him the most representative sculptor of his age. His 'life and work make him the most eloquent witness of the period.' (H.W. Janson, Nineteenth-century Sculpture, 1986). Rodin recognised David to have been a great sculptor though he thought that he had not produced a great masterpiece on the same level as his own. Victor Hugo wrote in Les Rayons et les Ombres: 'Michel-Ange avait Rome, et David a Paris.'

He is perhaps as much remembered now for his speciality in portrait medallions as for his sculptures. The medallions were one-sided and not minted, but were modelled for sand casting. Very 'few were commissioned or indeed even commercial, for David's altruistic, didactic purpose -- unique but symptomatic of the period -- was to accumulate a gallery of great and admirable men and women for the edification of his contemporaries, and especially of posterity.' At first he made them solely for the private use of his models but he came to see them as a 'Gallery of Great Men' (begun in 1827) and as an enduring didactic encyclopaedia. Most of them (except of course the historical ones) were done from life, with him making several journeys abroad to portray foreign luminaries. De Caso (David d'Angers, 1992) notes that David left his founders free to disseminate his medallions, the first being Louis Richard and Eck and Durand, then Thiébaut and the Fumière foundry. Janson specially singles out the Fumière posthumous casts as very satisfactory and also states that many 'fine and demonstrably early casts have no founders' marks.'

'David d'Angers will remain a great figure in the History of Art of the XIXth century...he belongs especially to that school of sculpture that delights in blending the spirit of Greek Art with the forms required to give historical accuracy to the impersonations of our period. He has brought sculpture to be most useful to society at large, by modelling hundreds of medallions of the celebrated men of his age, in which he has not only attained a rare degree of external resemblance, but also succeeded in unmistakably fixing the most recondite features of character.' (Forrer). He was responsible for taking the medallic art into the field of sculpture and primarily responsible for the revival of the cast medallion in France.

Mark Jones in The Art of the Medal, 1979, states that David d'Angers's 'medals represent a total break with the conventional approach towards medallic portraiture which recorded a subject in terms of his achievements or his position in society. They reflect a fundamental change of attitude which, totally contrary to practice in previous centuries, led the Romantics to regard the individual, at least in theory, as defined solely by his personal attributes and not in any way by his place in the "natural order".' Jeremy Cooper in Nineteenth-century Romantic Bronzes, 1975, considers the medallions to have been of 'crucial importance because they gave unprecedented attention to contemporary man in his natural habitat. Before David d'Angers, and indeed for a long time after, man was honoured in idealised sculpture with obtuse philosophical reference to the classical hero, whereas these bronze portraits...for the first time in sculpture acknowledged the absolute relevance of the natural appearance and inner emotions of the living man.'

The feature of adding the sitter's signature in facsimile further emphasised the individuality of the person; 'In the reproduced signature, David saw an analogue of physiognomy and therefore of character' (Jacques de Caso, David d'Angers, 1992, p. 173). 'Such facsimiles appear in all medallions except those where the artist was unable to procure a sample' (H.W. Janson, Nineteenth-century Sculpture, 1985).

Nearly all David's medallions are profiles which he considered more expressive because more comprehensive. He himself wrote: 'I have always been profoundly stirred by a profile. The [full] face looks at us; the profile is in relation with other beings. It is going to shun you; it doesn't even see you. The [full] face shows you several characteristics, and it is more difficult to analyse. The profile is unity.' Or, 'the profile of the visage gives the reality of life, whereas the [full] face gives only the fiction.' (The Romantics to Rodin, edited by Peter Fusco and H.W. Janson, 1980). It is also true that people adjust expressions on their full face to affect their audience; being less aware of their profile, it tends to tell its own story, and in any case is less subject to control or manipulation.

'David's medallion portraits seem designed to take full advantage of the bronze. They are meant to be viewed at arm's length, played against the light to vary the reflections and explore their almost limitless wealth of expressive effects.' (H.W. Janson, Nineteenth-century Sculpture).

Medallion portraits by David are now rare and only occasionally appear on the market. The selection in this catalogue is the largest group to emerge for many years. They are exceptional for the general excellence of their colour, patination and condition.

ROY DAVIDS