Secessionist Medals

Secessionist Artists - WWI 1914 -1918 => Unknown Artists => Topic started by: Rabenauge on January 08, 2020, 03:32:15 AM

Title: Press propaganda
Post by: Rabenauge on January 08, 2020, 03:32:15 AM

Unknown medallist.  1914. 

✤LÜGE・V・VERLÄUMDUNG✤VNSRE・GRÖSSTEN・FEINDE (lie a[nd] slander our greatest enemies).  Single-sided cast bronze, dark patina, 51.02 mm, 33.74 g.  Vorzüglich (extremely fine).

Title legend in double-lined border; at center of field, head with three grimacing faces, to front, left, and right, from whose open mouths writhe serpents; surrounding image, the names REVTER (Reuter) above; STEFANI below; PETERSBG.(Petersburg) right; HAVAS left; year date 19 --- 14 upper left and right, respectively.

This medal disparages the main news agencies broadcasting propaganda negative to the Central Powers: the English Reuter's Telegraph Company founded in 1851 by Paul Julius Reuter (a German immigrant); the Italian Agenzia Telegrafia Stefani founded in 1853 by Guglielmo Stefani; the French Agence Havas founded in 1835 by Charles-Louis Havas; and the St Petersburg Telegraph Agency founded in 1902.

The image of the snake-spewing faces on this medal possibly inspired that on the obverse of Karl Goetz's K-185 (Reuter Gezeter: deutsche U-boote in Amerika 7. Okt. 1916).  Goetz's medal employs a stereotype anti-Semitic caricature of Reuter (a German immigrant and converted Jew) to add scorn to the English enemy news agency.  The tri-faced image on the present medal, however, displays no obvious anti-Semitic features, though Havas also came from a Jewish family.

If any readers can shed more light on this medal - especially published references, the medallist, or examples in other collections - it would be much appreciated.