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 SMP Silver Salon Forums
 Continental / International Silver
 Buggy French Medal
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| Author | Topic: Buggy French Medal |
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Paul Lemieux Posts: 1792 |
posted 07-22-2003 11:55 AM
  
The medal saw a rise in popularity during the Art Nouveau era and many medals and medal-based pieces of jewelry (most commonly brooches, stickpins, and cuff links) were produced, usually showing a woman or man's face. Medals and medal jewelry were usually more restrained in decoration than other Art Nouveau jewelry; they are often more of a combination between Victorian (usu. neoclassical) and Art Nouveau than all-out Art Nouveau. These objects allowed medalists to show off their skills on a small scale, and almost all pieces are signed by the artist. Here is an interesting French Art Nouveau medal that combines Art Nouveau with the Aesthetic Movement. The medal features three insects, two winged bugs and an ant, on an around a tree. Going by my somewhat rusty French, the verse on the medallion translates to: "You sang 'I am strong,' well, dance now!" (Corrections welcome!) It really doesn't seem to have anything to do with the bug scene. The medalist was Jean Vernon (signature is just visible to the left of the tree trunk-I will try to get a closeup posted), on whom I couldn't find any information. The side of the medal is marked "Argent" ("silver") with the post-1880 hallmark for medals of .950 grade silver. IP: Logged |
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Arg(um)entum Posts: 304 |
posted 07-22-2003 12:20 PM
"Vous chantiez..." is a quote from the LaFontaine fable of the industrious ant and the artsy cricket or cicada ('cigale'). When in winter the latter is hungry and asks the ant for food, the answer is: "you sang all summer - fine with me! Now dance!" My translating skills are lousy, but you get the idea. IP: Logged |
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swarter Moderator Posts: 2920 |
posted 07-22-2003 02:16 PM
It is a nice medal, but . . . . The insects depicted by the artist are in fact cicadas, and not crickets. They are both noisy, but crickets would have been a better choice, since adult cicadas, whose larvae live for several years underground, are incapable of feeding after emerging from the larval state, and live only long enough to lay their eggs. The depiction is fairly accurate, except that the raised wings are held backwards. I would have used a cricket, but I didn't coin the fable, nor would I expect to find one in a tree! Either LaFontaine or the artist didn't know his bugs. I checked two French dictionaries - one said grasshopper, and the other, cicada. These insects are unrelated, so the lexicographers didn't either! IP: Logged |
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Patrick Vyvyan Posts: 640 |
posted 07-22-2003 02:18 PM
Vernon (born 1897) did a whole series of medals based on the fables of La Fontaine: IP: Logged |
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Arg(um)entum Posts: 304 |
posted 07-22-2003 03:06 PM
Thanks for the lesson in entomology - something I know nothing about. As for LaFontaine and the medal's artist: French dictionaries do describe the 'cigale' as a critter that lives in trees and sucks the sap, so the artist is off the hook. LaFontaine lived in the 17th century, maybe the life cycle of these things wasn't well known yet or, he may just have used some poetic licence.  It is a nice medal. Does it have a reverse? Would it have been made just as a collectors' item or issued for a particular occasion? IP: Logged |
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Patrick Vyvyan Posts: 640 |
posted 07-22-2003 03:42 PM
La Fontaine lived from 1621 to 1695. He published his first volume of Fables in 1668. THe grasshopper and the ant was in fact "invented" by Aesop (circa 600 BC) and re-told by La Fontaine. Vernon, the medalist, lived from 1897 to 1975, so various commemorations could be possible: the tri-centenary of the birth of La Fontaine in 1921 (this seems too early)or the first publication in 1968 (this seems too late). For a translation of the fable, look here: Aesop's Fables IP: Logged |
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