Pingo Lewis (3 results)

Silver medal, 43 mm in diameter. Obverse: bust of Cook in relief with the legend 'Iac. Cook Oceani Investigator acerrimus' (the most intrepid investigator of the seas); reverse: full-length portrait of Britannia, her shield resting by her side, and the legend 'Nil intentatum Nostri Liquere' (our men have left nothing unattempted) and 'Auspiciis George III' in exergue. Commissioned by the Royal Society following Cook's death, this is the rare silver issue: one of only 322. News of Cook's death in Hawai'i in 1779 reached the Royal Society in the following year, and Sir Joseph Banks set about ensuring that Cook was memorialised through the commissioning of this medal and the publication of the official account of his Third Voyage. The medal was engraved by Lewis Pingo (1743-1830), who succeeded his father Thomas as Assistant Engraver at the Royal Mint in 1776. Fellows of the Royal Society were entitled to a bronze medal, a total of 577 of which were struck, but an additional 22 medals were struck in gold and 322 in silver (as here). Beddie, 2790; Nan Kivell, (Portraits of the Famous and Infamous), p72.

Bronze medal, 43 mm in diameter. Obverse: bust of Cook in relief with the legend ' Iac. Cook Oceani Investigator Acerrimus' (the most intrepid investigator of the seas); reverse: full-length portrait of Britannia, her shield resting by her side, and the legend 'Nil intentatum Nostri liquere' (our men have left nothing unattempted) and 'Auspiciis George III' in exergue. Commissioned by the Royal Society following Cook's death, this is the bronze issue: one of 577. News of Cook's death in Hawai'i in 1779 reached the Royal Society in the following year, and Sir Joseph Banks set about ensuring that Cook was suitably remembered through the commissioning of this medal and the publication of the official account of his Third Voyage. The medal was engraved by Lewis Pingo (1743-1830), who succeeded his father Thomas as Assistant Engraver at the Royal Mint in 1776. Fellows of the Royal Society were entitled to a bronze medal, a total of 577 of which were struck, but an additional 22 medals were struck in gold and 322 in silver. Beddie, 2790; Nan Kivell (Portraits of the Famous and Infamous), p72.

1 3/16 inches in diameter. Bronze medallion featuring a bust of Cook with the Latin motto "Oceani Investigator Acerrimus" (the most intrepid explorerof the seas), and on the reverse the figure of Fortune holding a naval ruder atop a globe with the motto "Nil intentatum nostril liquere" (our men have left nothing unattempted). One of 574 struck in bronzed copper, of a total edition of 884 (including 19 in gold and 291 in silver). Cook was elected to the Royal Society in March of 1776, and much of the scientific work of his voyages of discovery was performed under the auspices of the Society: the first to observe the transit of Venus; and the second to search for "Terra Australis"; and the third to search for a Northern passage to connect the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. This medal was commissioned by the Royal Society (which received news of Cook's tragic death in 1780), from the chief engraver of the Mint, Lewis Pingo (1743-1830), who finished it in 1784. Catalogued by Kate Hunter.