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Accademia di San Luca (Academy of St Luke), Rome, Membership Medal for David Allan

Medallist: Hamerani, Giovanni Martino · 1649-1705Primary sculptor: Hamerani, Ermenegildo · 1683-1756Case-makers: Taylor & Son, John

Accademia di San Luca (Academy of St Luke), Rome, Membership Medal for David Allan

The present medal is traditionally believed to be that given to David Allan to mark his membership of the Accademia di San Luca in Rome, which he…

The present medal is traditionally believed to be that given to David Allan to mark his membership of the Accademia di San Luca in Rome, which he attended as a student between 1764 and 1777. The portrait of Pope Clement XI on the obverse face is the work of Ermenegildo Hamerani and is signed in the cast accordingly beneath the shoulder. The medal is very similar to one in the Fitzwilliam Museum Collection at Oxford University [CM.25-1965] dated to 1716, their's described as silvered bronze in a gilt bronze frame. If indeed the RSA's medal marked Allan's Membership of the Accademia then it is of potentailly earlier vintage; Pope Clement XI held the Papacy from 1700-1721.

The present medal is traditionally believed to be that given to David Allan to mark his membership of the Accademia di San Luca in Rome, which he attended as a student between 1764 and 1777. The composition on the reverse face depicts St Luke, patron saint of artists, seated at his easel painting the Virgin and Child who appear to him seated in clouds and sunbusrts above his head. To his right sits St Luke's attribute, the Ox. The joint of obverse and reverse faces is rather crudely executed and the outside rim is irregular and rough, as though any inscription it may originally have carried has long since been erased.

the small display case is of simple cushioned profile oak, with plate glass, a black velvet-lined tray with four recesses to take the present medal, also a wax cast of its reverse face, and also RSA 2017.131.2, and a wax cast of its reverse face. The case was probably commissioned by the Royal Scottish Academy from Taylors shortly after the medals were gifted to its collections on 1874-11-01 [it has not shown up in Taylor & Son's vouchers for 1874-1880]