The American Numismatic Society NEWS RELEASE

96 Fulton Street New York, 10038 Tel: (212) 571-4470 Fax: (212) 571-4479 http://www.numismatics.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE.......................................................December 10 , 2007

American Numismatic Society acquires the Guido Kisch collection of legal medals, tokens and coins

The American Numismatic Society announced today that it has, through private treaty, acquired a large collection of legal medals, tokens and coins that had been gathered by the late Prof. Guido Kisch (1889-1985). 

The stunning examples of more than 1000 objects focuses on law and the legal profession collected over more than half a century and depicts subjects such as emblems and badges of the law, institutions and personalities related to the law, legal history, education, legislation, prison, emancipation, with objects ranging in date from the 16th to mid-20th centuries.

Prof. Guido Kisch was Professor of Jurisprudence and the History of Law at the Universities of Koenigsberg, Prague and Halle before emigrating to the United States in 1935.  He continued his academic career in New York until after the Second World War when he returned to Basel, Switzerland.  He wrote prolifically on the subjects of humanism and jurisprudence; parts of his  collection were discussed and illustrated in “Recht und Gerechtigkeit in der Medaillenkunst” which was published in 1995 in Heidelberg.

The Society has been expanding its holdings in an ongoing effort to strengthen its outstanding collections and to ensure that the collections are well maintained for the study and enjoyment of current and future generations of collectors and researchers.  The ANS collection of medals, both foreign and U.S. has grown to over 100,000 objects.  Many of the objects are available on line, and the ANS is trying to improve in this area.

A few example from the Kisch collection are represented below:

ANS-2008.9.5. Silver. 52.6mm. 19.69gm.

One of the most outstanding medals in the collection, this silver piece is known as the “Cambyses’ Justice” medal. The obverse illustrates a scene related by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus (V.25) in which the Persian King Cambyses displays the wisdom, justice and personal responsibility required from judges. The “Cambyses” medal came to the Kisch collection from a famous, lifelong collector, Dr. Edward Gans, professor in the Near Eastern Studies Department at the University of California, Berkeley. Gans had obtained it in 1940 from the collection of Dr. Nussbaum, who acquired it in 1937 from the Zentralbibliothek, in Zurich. Dr. Philip Lederer, who catalogued the Nussbaum collection, dated the “Judgment of Cambyses” to about 1550, and attributed it to an unidentified master from Augsburg in Bavaria. Professor Gans, however, felt that the technique and style of the medal suggested that the medallist was from the lower Rhine region rather than from Bavaria. Dr. Kisch added to the discussion by comparing it with the masterwork paintings of Gerard David (1460-1523), the early Dutch Renaissance artist, and suggested that Flanders or Lower Germany are much more probable as the “Cambyses” medal’s place of origin. He too dated the issue to the mid-16th century.

ANS 2008.9.1. Bronze .88.6mm

This cast bronze is one of the rarest and most famous medallic issues portraying an image of the Roman emperor Constantine I (AD 307-337). The original example of the “Constantine” medallion--as well as its famous companion commemorating the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius (AD 610-41)--was purchased in 1402 from Antonio Mancini, a Florentine merchant in Paris, for the collection of the Duc de Berry in November, 1402. Surviving in but few copies, this first genuine medallic portrait produced in the post-antique world became an important historical artifact in the European tradition and a great illustration of the dawning of the Renaissance.

ANS 2008.9.7. Bronze. 65.6 mm

This cast medal of the early Renaissance period represents the bust of Ulysses Musotti (Ulixes Musotus,1508-1515), a Bolognese lawyer. Dr. Julius Friedländer attributed the work to Francesco Raibolini (called “Francia,” 1450-1517), a leading artist of the Italian Renaissance. Francia gained distinction for his splendid medals of Pope Julius II and a vast number of medals of the Italian princes passing through Bologna in the beginning of the16th century.

ANS 2008.9.8.Bronze. 38.0 mm.