Medal of Captain James Biddle
1815
Medium
Bronze
Dimensions
Diam. 2 9/16 in. (6.5 cm)
Classification
Medal
Culture
American
Department
The American Wing
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of William H. Huntington, 1883
Accession Number
83.2.376
Tags
About this artwork
This bronze medal, created by Hungarian-American medallist Moritz Fürst in 1815, commemorates Captain James Biddle's heroic service during the War of 1812. Fürst was commissioned to create a series of twenty-seven Congressional medals honoring American naval victories in that conflict, works that established standards for American commemorative medallic art. The medals were awarded in gold to naval commanders and silver to their officers, with bronze examples like this one struck as presentation...
About the Artist
Moritz Fürst · 1782–1882
Moritz Fürst was a Hungarian-born engraver and medalist who became one of the most accomplished practitioners of his craft in the early United States. Born in Hungary in 1782, he acquired his technical training in European ateliers before emigrating to America, where he arrived in the early years of the nineteenth century and ultimately settled in Philadelphia — then the center of the young nation...