MOSSOP, WILLIAM STEPHEN (Brit.). Son of the last, and also a Medallist, born at Dublin in 1788, and educated at the Academy of Samuel White. " He was ", says Frazer, " in 1802, placed in the Art Schools of the Royal Dublin Society, under Francis West, the master of the Figure School, and became afterwards his private pupil until the unexpected death of his father obliged him, at the age of sixteen years, to commence practising his future profession for a livelihood. His first work was a medal for the Incorporated Society for Promoting Charter Schools in Ireland, which he began under his father's directions, and it was finished soon after, before he was seventeen years of age. His art studies were resumed for a time under Mr. West; and, in 1806, young Mossop was commissioned by the Farming Society of Ireland to prepare a medal for their shows, which was likewise intended to be worn as a badge by their life members. In 1810 he designed and struck a large-sized medal to commemorate the fiftieth year of the reign of George III., and in 1813 received the premium offered by the Society of Arts for a die intended for a school medal. This was afterwards purchased from him by the Feinaglian Institute and employed as their premium medal. In the succeeding year (1814) he competed again, with success, in accordance with an advertisement of the Society of Arts, who promised to purchase the die, but afterwards neglected to do so. The design which he prepared was a fine head of Vulcan. “ Mossop followed the process adopted by his father when designing the model of the future medal-die he intended to engrave, using a preparation of bees-wax, melted and softened with turpentine, coloured white by the addition of flake white, or brown with oxide of iron. He spread this tempered wax upon a piece of glass or slate, adding and working in successive portions until the design was completed to his satisfaction. Several models prepared by him in this manner are in my possession, which evince his skilful manipulation and freedom of touch. With the care of a genuine artist, when the human figure was intended to be reproduced, he,as a preliminary stage, represented it in a nude condition, to secure a natural and correct rendering of the postures and relative measurements of the individual parts ; afterwards the needful draperies and other accessory embellishments were added and worked over. Such models were made upon a scale that afforded a design of larger size than the die which was intended to be engraved. They were plotted into squares of equal measurements, and so transferred with accuracy to the metallic surface, similar to the well-known method adopted by painters. Thus the perfect medal was finished from a well-considered model, though the artist did not carry out in all instances his primary ideas after a servile manner, for I find some of his medals to differ in detail from the wax design, and the alterations were usually improvements as well. "Mossop was nominated secretary to the Royal Hibernian Academy when it was founded, and held office during his life-time. He died in 1827, after an attack of mental aberration — another in the long list of those artists whose minds have suffered from incessant brain work and the anxieties inseparable from the pursuit of their profession when wanting the recompense of adequate patronage. "About seven years before his death he contemplated preparing a series of forty medals to represent the portraits of distinguished Irishmen. He completed the first medal of the set, that of Henry Grattan, and worked out almost perfectly four others, namely, Ussher, Charlemont, Swift and Sheridan ; but the inscriptions with their names were not added, and the dies remained for several years without being hardened. At length they passed into the possession of J. Woodhouse, who annealed them with complete success, the designs having by good fortune remained intact and in perfect condition since they left the hands of Mossop. Another medal, it is stated, was modelled by him, which I have seen no impression of, namely, “ Hercules slaying the Hydra". The heads of the hydra in this design were reported to represent those of three prominent political agitators in Dublin. The medal he made for the Rifle Brigade is described from an unique example in my possession. "Mossop left some valuable designs cast in plaster of Paris. Certain of these casts reproduce the models he prepared for his Irish portrait-medals : one represents the original design for his prize-medal of Vulcan, and a few have no relation to any of his completed dies. He was employed like his father in preparing the seals of different corporate bodies and public boards, and some of the designs he prepared for this purpose are works of artistic value, and wellexecuted ; but no list of these seals has yet appeared. The following imperfect record of such as have fallen under my own observation is subjoined: Chamber of Commerce, Waterford; — Cork Institution, MDCCCVII; — County of Sligo Infirmary, 1813; — Irish Medical Office; — Seals of the Irish Treasury and Sub-Treasurers ; — Waterford Harbour Commissioners ; — Derby Corporation Seal; — Strabane Corporation ; — 77th Regiment ; — Richmond Lunatic Asylum; — La Touche ; — Episcopal Seals, with Arms (various); Prussian Consulate; — United States Consulate; — Commanding Officer of the Royal Artillery in Ireland; — Seal of the Benchers of King's Inns (possibly by the elder Mossop) ; — Seal of the Rotunoo Lying-in Hospital, MDCCCVII. The following steel-dies of Mossop Junr are preserved in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy : Obv. and R. dies of the small medals of William III. ; — Obv. and R. dies of Richard Wogan Talbot's medal; — Obv. and R. dies of George IV. 's medal, and a "hubb" for the head of George IV.; — Obv. and R. of George III.'s Coronation medal ; — Obv. of the heads of the "Three Georges", commemorating the Centenary of the House of Hanover. " List of Medals. Incorporated Society for Charter Schools in Ireland ; — Medal of the Farming Society of Ireland (3 var.) ; — George III.'s Jubilee Medal, 1809 (signed: W. S. M. FECIT) ; — Kildare Farming Society, 1813 ; — Centenary Medal of the House of Hanover, 1814 (signed : MOSSOP F. on obv., and MOSSOP FECIT on R.); — Head of Vulcan; — Daniel O'Connell, 1816; — Feinaglian Institution (3 varieties of different sizes and designs); — Irish Society School, Coleraine; — Cork Institution Medal; — North of Ireland Society ; — Dublin Society Medal ; — Large Wellington Medal (unfinished; size: 2-7 in.; inscription: WATERLOO, JUNE); — Medalet of Wellington, 1815, published by West; — Order of Merit of the 22nd Cheshire Regiment; — 77th Regimental Medal; — Medal of the Rifle Brigade; — Sir Charles Giesecke; — Colonel Talbot; — Right Hon. Henry Grattan, 1820; — Archbishop Ussher; — Dean Swift (illustrated) ; — Richard Brinsley Sheridan ; — Lord Charlemont; — Visit of George IV. to Ireland, 1821 (5 varieties, one struck for the Orange Association); — Club of Apprentice Boys of Derry, with bust of Rev. George Walker, 1814; — Orange Association (3 varieties, one a reproduction of his father's medal); — Unfinished medals, with figures of Fortune holding caduceus, Equity, and an allegorical representation of Agriculture, etc. He also cut dies for the Dublin Penny and Halfpenny of 1804 (payable at the Pawnbrokers' Office, Bishop St.); — Nevill & Co's, Halfpenny, 1803; — St. Patrick's Halfpennies 1804, 1819 ; — Fingall, Halfpenny, 1804, etc. Bibliography. — As above.
Source: Biographical dictionary of medallists; coin, gem, and seal-engravers, mint-masters, ancient and modern, with references to their works B.C. 500-A.D. 1900; compiled by L. Forrer, London 1904
Source: Biographical dictionary of medallists; coin, gem, and seal-engravers, mint-masters, ancient and modern, with references to their works B.C. 500-A.D. 1900; compiled by L. Forrer, London 1904
MITTERMAYER, MATTHIAS VON WAFFENBERG
MITTERMAYER, MATTHIAS VON WAFFENBERG (Austr.). Mintmaster at Vienna, circ. 1679-1705 (?); died. 22. December 1708. His initials occur on the coins issued by him, which were all engraved by the Mint-engraver, Johann Michael Hoffmann. Among these are the two commemorative Thalers of the Siege of Vienna, 1683, Double Ducat of 1682, Ducats of 1683-84, Quarter Ducat, 1694, Thalers and Sechsers, &c. A Thaler of Prince Ferdinand Wilhelm Euseb of Schwarzenberg, and consort Maria Anna, 1696, of which se...
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MITTERMAYER, MATTHIAS VON WAFFENBERG (Austr.). Mintmaster at Vienna, circ. 1679-1705 (?); died. 22. December 1708. His initials occur on the coins issued by him, which were all engraved by the Mint-engraver, Johann Michael Hoffmann. Among these are the two commemorative Thalers of the Siege of Vienna, 1683, Double Ducat of 1682, Ducats of 1683-84, Quarter Ducat, 1694, Thalers and Sechsers, &c. A Thaler of Prince Ferdinand Wilhelm Euseb of Schwarzenberg, and consort Maria Anna, 1696, of which se...
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MNESARCHOS
MNESARCHOS (Greek). Son of Euphron or Euthyphron, and named as the father of Pythagoras. He is said to have been an Engraver of rings. According to some accounts, he was not of purely Greek origin, and may have belonged to the Tyrrhenians of Lemnos and Imbros. He died at the beginning of the tyranny of Polycrates, towards the middle of the sixth century B.C. (Diog. Laërt., VIII, 1). He cultivated the art of gem-engraving more for glory than for gain. Bibliography. — Babelon, op. cit. — King, op....
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MNESARCHOS (Greek). Son of Euphron or Euthyphron, and named as the father of Pythagoras. He is said to have been an Engraver of rings. According to some accounts, he was not of purely Greek origin, and may have belonged to the Tyrrhenians of Lemnos and Imbros. He died at the beginning of the tyranny of Polycrates, towards the middle of the sixth century B.C. (Diog. Laërt., VIII, 1). He cultivated the art of gem-engraving more for glory than for gain. Bibliography. — Babelon, op. cit. — King, op....
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MOCCHI, FRANCESCO
MOCCHI, FRANCESCO (ltal.). Sculptor and Medallist of the first half of the seventeenth century, who resided at Florence, and died there in 1646. One of his best known medallic productions is a Portrait-piece of Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma, with a representation on R. of his equestrian statue. Heiss ascribes to this artist a Portrait-medal of Pope Clement VIII., signed F. M. F.on obv. ; R. GREGEM.NE.DESERAS. Pope kneeling to r. (Vide vol. II, p. 116.) Isolated medals, says von Fabriczy, hav...
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MOCCHI, FRANCESCO (ltal.). Sculptor and Medallist of the first half of the seventeenth century, who resided at Florence, and died there in 1646. One of his best known medallic productions is a Portrait-piece of Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma, with a representation on R. of his equestrian statue. Heiss ascribes to this artist a Portrait-medal of Pope Clement VIII., signed F. M. F.on obv. ; R. GREGEM.NE.DESERAS. Pope kneeling to r. (Vide vol. II, p. 116.) Isolated medals, says von Fabriczy, hav...
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MOCCHI, LORENZO CIGLIA
MOCCHI, LORENZO CIGLIA (Ital.). Sculptor and Medallist, of the end of the fifteenth century, who, according to the noteworthy conjecture of G. Milanesi may be identified with the so-called MÉDAILLEUR A LA FORTUNE (q.v. Vol. II, 127). Hern von Fabriczy does not pronounce against this attribution, which appears quite reasonable, as the medal of Lorenzo Ciglia Mocchi (illustrated) is signed on R. L.C.M., which initials can only represent the name of Mocchi. All the eight medals bearing on R. a nude...
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MOCCHI, LORENZO CIGLIA (Ital.). Sculptor and Medallist, of the end of the fifteenth century, who, according to the noteworthy conjecture of G. Milanesi may be identified with the so-called MÉDAILLEUR A LA FORTUNE (q.v. Vol. II, 127). Hern von Fabriczy does not pronounce against this attribution, which appears quite reasonable, as the medal of Lorenzo Ciglia Mocchi (illustrated) is signed on R. L.C.M., which initials can only represent the name of Mocchi. All the eight medals bearing on R. a nude...
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