Q. David Bowers
Aesthetics of the Peace Dollar
In Numismatic Art in America, Aesthetics of the United States Coinage, Cornelius Vermeule, commented concerning the Peace design:
"The Peace dollar of 1921 completed the remodeling of the regular coinage, begun in 1907. The slick modern aura, a soft and worn look to the obverse even before the coin had circulated, paved the way for many similar experiences in the commemorative coinage between the two World Wars. De-pendence on ideas worked out by Saint-Gaudens 15 years earlier saved the coin from artistic mediocrity, for enough of the master's style has filtered through in his familiar iconographic types of Liberty and the eagle to insure a good ... coin. Anthony de Francisci (1887-1965) was a pupil of James E. Fraser at the-Art Students League in New York. He also worked for MacNeil and Weinman. It is interesting to note that, as with the coins of Saint-Gaudens, Fraser, and MacNeil, the relief of the first Peace Dollar was too bold and had to be modified slightly in 1922 to suit the mechanics of production at the mints.
"Liberty's head on the obverse is certainly based on the widely publicized model 01' bozzetto by Saint-Gaudens for the ten-dollar gold piece or eagle of 1907, and therefore ultimately on the so-called 'Beautiful Head' from the Altar of Zeus Soter of about 165B.C. at Pergamon. The eagle on the mountain peak also recalls without hesitation the birds of Saint-Gaudens and Bela Pratt for the redesigned gold coinage. Rays of sun streaming up at the right are likewise a pioneering feature of both sides of Saint-Gaudens' double eagle. The obverse is weak, because an element of prettiness permeates the head of Liberty-an emptiness of face, an elaborateness of hair, and an overall glossiness that adds up to nothing beyond the thick rays, the meaningless locks out behind, and a vapid lower jaw. Spacing and position of the lettering are satisfying enough, and in 1964 became the source for similar features of the Kennedy half-dollar. Perhaps as a reaction to the lettering of Weinman's two coins [dime and half dollar] in1916 the mottoes on obverse and reverse are enlarged out of proportion to their importance, but they do not affect the general design. (This device was used less successfully on commemorative half-dollars in the 1920s and 1930s.)
"Morey wrote of the sculptor, 'A garden sculptor of the Italian marble cutter school, de Francisci's medals are far superior to his statues. They lack the sharp definition with which Weinmann [sic] exacts full value for every contour, but avoid the sketchiness whereby many sculptors confuse medallic art with low relief. His power lies in ajustly balanced composition and a nice sense of the part to be assigned to the vacant field.' (Morey, C.R., Sculpture Since the Centennial, Yale University Press, 1927,page 222.)
"Among de Francisci's sculptures, nothing could be more unappealing, slick and sentimental in the worst traditions of religious art, than the bust of Joan of Arc exhibited at the great traveling exposition of the National Sculpture Society in 1929. The Maid of Orleans, is transformed into a Mater Dolorosa that applies vapid modern sculptural technique to an iconographic lapse of the painter Guido Reni in the middle of the seventeenth century, at the height of the Italian Baroque phase of Counter-Reformation art.
"What T.L. Comparette wrote in eulogy of Roty in 1913 could be applicable to the ideas embodied in the Peace dollar. On Roty's Chilean peso, 'a large Andesean condor just lighting upon a lofty crag, is a powerful piece of work. It is not hard, in looking at a brilliant new specimen, to fancy that one is peering through a small circular glass out at the actual scene, so well is the notion of largeness and loftiness conveyed by the design.' (Kunz, The Late Louis Oscar Roty, p. 109.) ....
"De Francisci has stated and his wife has confirmed that she was the model for the head of Liberty. Such evidence as the sculptor's description of opening the studio window to let the wind blow on her hair is difficult to question, even given the ideal purposes of the design. Against this stands the visual fact that de Francisci's Liberty derives from the later study for the head of Victory in Saint-Gaudens' Sherman monument, the bronze bozzetto that came in its patriotic American form onto the ten-dollar gold piece. The key to this relationship, and thus ultimate derivation from the Pergamene altar of Zeus Soter in the second century B.C., lies in the little-noticed fact that Saint-Gaudens dedicated his study of 'Nike Eirene' to James Earle Fraser. And in December 1921 Fraser wrote, 'I have given the Saint-Gaudens head to de Francisci as an example of what we consider a beautiful type.' (Taxay, U.S. Mint and Coinage, pp. 355-356.)
"Whatever the relation to real life, however flattering to Teresa Cafarelli de Francisci, the fact remains that what her husband had in his mind as he worked was the unsuppressible vividness and excitement of a classic creation by SaintGaudens. It is easy to see where de Francisci deviated from the master's prototype and what elements his wife could have contributed to the design. Windblown hair, naturalism in the bun on the back, reduction of the area around the small eyes, and a mouth like a Quattrocento marble child by Desiderio or Mino da Fiesole are all touches that mollify the grandeur of the Sherman Victory. Whether the graceful profile of Mrs. de Francisci or, indeed, any pretty young lady's face was needed to create the proper sculptural mood is a point that will always remain open to speculation. As the coin emerged in the regular issues of 1922, it may have lacked the high relief that all outside sculptors have demanded from engravers at the Philadelphia Mint, but the coin was a true expression of the facile, eclectic artistic personality of its creator. (The statements and correspondence in connection with the designs for the Peace dollar, Teresa Cafarelli de Francisci's participation, and the final modifications of the height of the relief by Chief Engraver George T. Morgan are set forth in Taxay, U.S. Mint, pp. 354-359. Of the eagle he writes: 'It is de Francisci's conception of America, and it is a beautiful conception').
"Oddly enough, this American eagle can be traced back through a number of Italian sixteenth-century birds to the creature perched over rocks on a branch in the upper left reverse of Pisanello's medal of 1444, made for the marriage of Leonello d'Este with Maria of Aragon. Here the eagle sym-bolizes the Este family. See G.F. Hill, A Corpus of Italian Medals oj the Renaissance before Cellini (London, 1930), pI. 6, no. 32; C. Vermeule, European Art and the Classical Past (Cambridge, Mass., 1964), p. 53."