token
- Museum number
- T.6500
- Description
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Metal alloy token with a plain edge. (whole)
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A village in ruins set in a landscape including trees with a church which has a spire topped with a cross in the distance. Date directly underneath. Legend inscription. (obverse)
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A shepherd reclined under a tree with a hill in the background. Inscribed date underneath (Ex.). (reverse)
- Production date
- 1795
- Dimensions
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Weight: 10.400 grammes
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- Copied from an original curator's comment by nevans on the 17th May 2007 for a token with the same image and inscription on one side.
"The design on the obverse is taken from Thomas Bewick's illustration of the 1795 edition of Goldsmith's poem 'The Deserted Village'.
Sweet smiling village, lovliest of the lawn;
Thy sports are fled and all thy charms withdrawn;
Amist thy bowers the tyrants hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green:
Only one master grasps the whole domain,
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain.
Often found as the reverse is a shepherd under a tree, presumably illustrating the rural idyll that would result from Spence's plan. The design seems to have been taken from W. Hawkins's frontispiece to ‘Shenstone's Works’, dated December 1794. Though dated 1790 it must, like the obverse, date from 1795.
R.C. Bell, ‘Political and commemorative pieces simulating tradesmens’ tokens 1770-1802, n.d., p. 226; Walters 1917, pp. 16, 23."
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1818
- Department
- Money and Medals
- Registration number
- T.6500