UNITED STATES 1892-1893 World's Columbian Exposition (Canadian Recipient)

UNITED STATES 1892-1893 World's Columbian Exposition Award Medal by Saint-Gaudens / Barber to Canadian Recipient. 76.3mm bronze 196 grams (Eglit-90) 

Obverse: Columbus making landfall in the Americas. At the lower right are three male figures, one bearing an unfurling banner, and above them are the symbolic Pillars of Hercules with the three Spanish caravels and the inscription plvs vltra CHRISTOPHER/ COLVMBVS/ OCT.XII/MCCCCXCII AVGVSTVS SAINT GAVDENS FECIT"

Reverse: central tablet with an inscription and a space for a drop-in die with the name of the recipient. The tablet is flanked by flaming torches symbolizing light or intelligence, and below it the Santa Maria appears at full sail. Above, two winged females hold symbolic attributes—a trumpet and laurel wreaths and a stylus and a blank tablet—that celebrate the award recipient. WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION/ IN COMMEMORATION OF THE / FOUR HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY/ OF THE LANDING OF COLUMBUS/ MDCCCXCII . MDCCXCIII/ TO INSTITUTE FOR FEMALE DEAF MUTES / C.E. BARBER FECIT

Edge: Plain

Provenance: From the Collection of the Seminary of Sherbrooke, where it would have been housed with a similar medal awarded to Sherbrooke Seminary.

Augustus Saint-Gaudens served as an advisor for the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition sculptural program, accepted the commission for the official award medal. His obverse design was readily accepted, but the reverse designs were deemed inappropriate. Saint-Gaudens’s obverse was muled with a design for the reverse by Charles E. Barber, chief engraver at the United States Mint.

The hubs and dies for the medal were produced at the United States Mint in Philadelphia, but struck by the Scoville Manufacturing Company of Waterbury, Connecticut. The medal was finally awarded to recipients in 1896.

INSTITUTE FOR FEMALE DEAF MUTES –

From the American Annals of the Deaf Vol. 39, No. 1 (JANUARY, 1894), pp. 40-46

EXHIBITS OF SCHOOLS FOR THE DEAF AND WORK BY THE DEAF AT THE WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION.

The Catholic Institute for the Female Deaf of the Province of Quebec, at Montreal, which received two medals from the Exposition held at Paris, exhibited a large amount of fine work.

The exhibit consisted of twenty-nine copy-books containing work done by fifty-eight pupils, six albums containing twelve photographs, seventeen plans drawn by pupils, wax flowers, hair work, three pieces of relief-working, twenty- seven designs in drawing and painting, 127 pieces of needlework showing great variety, from the roughest flannel gown to the finest em- broidery, and ninety pieces of weaving and knitting ; the wool and flax used in the work were spun by the pupils. Seven framed oil-paintings completed the exhibit. The word Canada in wax flowers, the arms of Montreal worked on velvet, and J. Cartier, discoverer of Canada, and his arrival at Quebec in 1535, worked in human hair, were noteworthy among the numerous creditable specimens of this exhibit.

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