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Hurray, this time not antiquity but the Middle Ages! 🙂 I do love Middle Ages! I studied a medieval history of art and iconography.

Septem artes liberales or seven liberal arts were the great academic „skills”of the European medieval education. Four of them: arithmetica, geometria, musica, astronomia were the main skills, known as the quadrivium. Thanks to the quadrivium, the human mind could rise to a higher level—to the philosophy level! The remaining three lower liberal arts: grammatica, rhetorica, dialectica were called trivium.

On the reverse of the coin: four allegories of the Quadrivium team are looking at each other. The Geometry holds a wire sphere and a compass. Her right hand rests on the cube. There is a protractor on the floor. Arithmetic counts on the Napier’s bones (very smart calculating device even if it’s not strictly medieval) and on the abacus (invented by ancient Egyptians, in China known as suanpan). The Music is singing and she plays the medieval harp. We see a gittern at her feet. An astrolabe and a parchment with a solar system drawn on it, are two symbols of the Astronomy.

On the obverse we see a medieval rosette with septem artes liberales scheme. This is an allusion to a very famous illustration in Hortus deliciarum (Garden of Delights) a known medieval book by abbess Herrad of Landsberg.

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According to the first coin in this series, Bellona was supposed to refer to a well-known piece of art. My client asked me to draw more dynamic scene than Jupiter‘s composition. I found “The Chariot Race”, a painting attributed to the Hungarian painter Sándor Wagner (Alexander von Wagner). Like in Hungarian piece of art, in my design the four horses (not the rider) become heroes of the whole scene. Bellona to whom the coin was dedicated, is not the main element of the composition, like it supposed to be…

On the reverse of Bellona, wearing Roman helmet and armor, with a torch (symbolizing victory) in her right hand, enters to the circus on her quadriga. This is the chariot of Mars—god of war. Definitely Bellona is not a queen of beauty. Her face is rather terrifying, like Furies (deities of vengeance) faces.

I made many changes in my composition to make it different from the Hungarian painting. Due to the shape of the coin, the horse on the left has a different leg positioning. The hooves of the horses are protected by hipposandals — predecessors of the horseshoes in ancient Rome.

A shield with Medusa‘s head hangs on the Bellona’s chariot. In Greek mythology, Perseus cut the head of Medusa and gave it to Athena. Athena placed the head on her shield. From then on, the stone-turned gaze of the most dangerous of Gorgons, became the weapon of the gods. The face of my Medusa on Bellona’s shield is inspired by Antonio Canova’s famous sculpture “Perseus with the head of Medusa.”

Roman legionaries are watching the triumphal entry of Bellona. They are identical to each other, like stormtroopers in Star Wars movies. They are ready to kill in the name of their goddess. In the background we see triumphal arch with small inscription “Si vis pacem, para bellum“. This is a famous Latin sentence of Publius Flavius Vegetius, a 4th century historian, meaning: “If you want peace, prepare for war”.

I really love this project. No unnecessary decoration disturbs the clarity of the coin composition…

Strong and Beautiful Goddesses series, Niue, 5 dollars, 2 oz, 45 mm, antique finish high relief coin, selective gilding, client and producer: Mint of Poland.

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Victoria and Nike

Niue 2018.

About this coin:

Photo of the coin: Power Coin Blog

“The best design of all time and over the world with women on coin.” / “Sympathetic design” (my own translation from Russian): Silver Stacking Academy 2 YouTube

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Athena and Minerva

Niue 2019.

This is the sequel of the series inspired by artwork of Alfons Mucha.
Athena was the goddess of wisdom, art and war. Her attributes are: the owl (on her helm), a symbol of wisdom and the olive tree (olive branch in her hand), a symbol of prosperity. Athena offered the first olive tree to the Athenians…
Minerva, Roman goddess of war and art. She follows the Greek myths around Athena: on her helm we see Pegasus, a winged horse symbolizing artistic inspiration. Athena (Minerva) helped Bellerophon catch Pegasus with a golden bridle…

See the coin on Mint of Poland’s YT channel.

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Aphrodite and Venus

Niue 2020.

In my opinion, the third coin in this series, unfortunately does not reproduce accurately my design. The faces of both goddesses on the minted coin are not so delicate as on my drawing. What a pity…

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Tyche and Fortuna

In Greek Tyche (Τύχη) means blind fate, blind luck or fortune. Tyche is blind—she has a gold sash that covers her eyes. Fortuna is looking at the roman coin with the personification of the fortune. Both goddesses were responsible for the prosperity of the cities: they wear city—shaped crowns, respectively Greek and Roman. In ancient art Tyche and Fortuna was depicted as carrying a cornucopia—a horn of plenty. The wheel represents the unpredictable turns of fortune.

See the coin on Mint of Poland’s YT channel.

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The reverse of this coin was inspired by the painting “Jupiter and Thetis” by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, a famous French neo-classical painter. Unlike the painting there is a silhouette of Thetis at the foot of Jupiter. On the left, behind the god, we see a silhouette of Victory, shown not as Roman but as Greek goddess. It is the reconstruction of the famous Hellenistic sculpture of Nike: the Nike of Samothrace (also called the Winged Victory of Samothrace). The whole scene alludes then to the ancient Greek statue of Zeus at Olympia, the work of the famous sculptor Phidias: in his right hand the god of sky held a statue of Nike, personification of victory.

On the obverse: Temple of Jupiter Stator (Jupiter the stayer) according to engraving of the nineteenth century. Background pattern: mosaic of the 3rd century (Pergamon).

About this coin:

Mennica Gdańska / YouTube
“It’s clear that Jupiter has the potential to be a fine coin. We’re not expecting the relief to be quite as detailed and intricate as shown here.” AgAuNews