Traditions of Medal Design and Production.
The St Petersburg Mint. 1724-2004

On 28 December 2004 an exhibition devoted to the 280th anniversary of the St Petersburg Mint opened in the Gallery of the Numismatics Department of the State Hermitage. More than 250 exhibit items are on display, illustrating the development of medal design and production from the time of Peter the Great to the commemorative medals and coins of our own day.

Among these exhibits is the first medal produced in the St Petersburg Mint to mark the death of Emperor Peter I. There are also works by such talented Russian mint masters as T. Ivanov and S. Yudin and by foreign masters including J. A. Dassier, the Wechter brothers, I.B. Gass, I.K. Jaeger, and also K. von Leberecht, who laid the foundations for a new direction in the art of medals - Classicism. The Classical period is represented at the exhibition by works from the skilled Russian designers and fabricators of the first half of the 19th century F. Tolstoy, P. Utkin, A. Lyalin and A. Klepikov.

The style called Historicism, which was characteristic for the second half of the 19th century, is represented by the works of A. Tube and P. Brusnitsyn. The art of portrait medals developed in the late 19th century and is reflected in the art of V.V. Alekseev and A. Grilikhes (son).

At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, there was a brief period when medal production flourished. After the First World War and the Revolution of 1917, medal design fell out of artistic favor. A process of rebirth began in the 1960’s.

Ñîntemporary medal design is represented in the exhibition by works from S.A. Kornilov, A.D. Shchablykkin, E.I, Novikova, A.A. Dolgopolova, and E.V. Kramskaya, as well as works by the chief artist of the St Petersburg Mint, National Artist of Russia, A.B. Baklanov.

The St Petersburg Mint maintains close ties with the Hermitage to this day. Over the past decade it produced several medals relating to events in the life of the most important museum of the country.

The exhibition has been organized jointly by the State Hermitage and the St Petersburg Mint. The curator of the exhibition is Evgeniya Semenovna Shchukina, chief researcher in the State Hermitage’s Department of Numismatics and doctor of art history.

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Sergey Orlov, Deputy Director of the St Petersburg Mint, at the opening

At the opening

At the exhibition