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Vermeylen, F., Leopold Duc De Brabant, Société Hollandaise-Belge des Amis de la Médaille d'Art , 1910, Obverse
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From the collection of John Birks
Bronze, 63 x 43 mm, 77g
Numbers issued: 263 bronze and 55 silver
The Société Hollandaise-Belge des Amis de la Médaille d'Art (Dutch/Belgian Friends of Medallic Art Society) issued one or two medals a year from 1901 until 1918, including many all time favorites. The Belgian Les Amis de la Médaille d'Art was a successor organization, issuing medals from 1922-1955.
Artist: Frans Vermeylen, 1857-1922. Sculptor and medalist, born Louvain, he attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts Paris and studied with Dumont among others. He both restored and created new public monuments, was commissioned to do many portrait busts, and, according to the ANS catalog was a key figure in Belgian medallic art. At the ANS expo of contemporary medallic art in New York in 1910 he exhibited six works (see pages 339-340 of the exhibition catalog).
British Museum Acquisions 1978-82 lists one of his works - this piece.
Subject: Leopold III, Léopold Philippe Charles Albert Meinrad Hubertus Marie Miguel was born in 1901 and died in 1983. He succeeded his father Albert I in 1934 and abdicated in favor of his son Baudouin in 1951. He fought in WWI. After the war he attended seminary in Santa Barbara, California. He married Princess Astrid of Sweden in 1926; they had three children before she died in an auto accident in 1935. Their younger son Albert II is still reigning King of Belgium. He remarried in 1941 and sired another three children, although they do not have any right to succession. During WWII he quickly surrendered the Belgian Army to the Germans, sparking accusations of treason. He refused to cooperate in the occupation and was kept under house arrest; regardless the Belgian government in exile refused his authority to rule. After the Allied landings in France he was deported to German where he was freed by US Army in May 1945. Despite being exhonerated of charges of treason in 1946 he remained in exile in Switzerland. He narrowly won a 1950 national referendum that allowed him to return, but the protests and strikes that erupted convinced him to abdicate in favor of his son.
Obverse: Bust of the nine year old Leopold left. Below the bust "LEOPOLD DUC DE BRABANT". In the upper right "1910", in the lower right "F VERMEYLEN".
Reverse: To left a nude boy, hands to mouth. In the distance a radiant star over cathedral and civic buildings. Above the star "SPES FIDES AMOR". Below the city "SOCIETE HOLLANDO-BELGE DES AMIS DE LA MEDAILLE D'ART 1910".
Rim: Plain.
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