Medal

Pierre Simon Benj. Duvivier

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Duvivier was a prolific medalist who had a lifelong royal court appointment to the French crown (he was a favorite of Louis XVI) and the Institut de France. He was commissioned by Colonel David Humphreys, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson to create this medal. It was the first of the Comitia Americana series: a collection of medals that accompanied Congress’s resolutions of thanks for military accomplishments in the American Revolution. Created for George Washington to recognize his victory in compelling British troops out of Boston on March 17, 1776, the obverse of the medal shows a profile bust of Washington (allegedly based on Jean Antoine Houdon’s model), while the reverse depicts the general on a horse, pointing towards the British troops sailing out of the harbor. Like the other medals in the series, it was designed and struck at the Paris Mint; however, it took fourteen years to be produced and sent to Washington, on account of several failed committees and a rejected design.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art