Medal: Benedetto de Pasti
model ca. 1453–56 (possibly cast 16th century)
Medium
Copper alloy with brown to reddish patina under a layer of black wax.
Dimensions
Diam. 9 cm, wt. 192.32 g.
Classification
Medals
Department
Robert Lehman Collection
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Robert Lehman Collection, 1975
Accession Number
1975.1.1287
Tags
Art Historical Context
This Renaissance medal, created by Matteo de’ Pasti around 1453–56, portrays Benedetto de Pasti in profile, a format that deliberately recalls ancient Roman coins. Matteo, a Veronese artist and medallist active at the court of Rimini, specialized in such intimate portraits that served as portable tributes to family members, patrons, and humanists. The copper-alloy piece, measuring nine centimeters across, captures the sitter’s with crisp relief typical of mid-fifteenth-century Italian medal-making. R medals like this one functioned as both personal keepsakes and statements of cultural refinem...
About the Artist
Matteo de' Pasti · 1420–1467
Matteo de' Pasti (c. 1420–c. 1467) was an Italian medalist, illuminator, and architect active in the mid-fifteenth century, best known as the principal artist of the brilliant humanist court of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta in Rimini. The precise details of his early training are not fully documented, but he was active as a miniature painter and illuminator before establishing himself as one of th...