The Silich Collection of Historical and Art Medals (Part I)

MEXICO, Primer Centenario de la Proclamacion de Su-Independencia [First Centenary of Independence], 1910, a silver medal by Tiffany & Co, robed figure of Victory standing facing, holding sword and torch, sun over mountains in background, rev. legend in eight lines within wreath, edge impressed sterling, 90mm, 239.30g (Grove 382a; cf. Heritage 61310, 24479; cf. Stack’s/Bowers/Ponterio Oct. 2014, 687). Very fine and toned, rare £400-£600

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Silich Collection of Historical and Art Medals.

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H.-P.Wipfler Collection, DNW Auction M2, 11 July 2006, lot 2638; bt J. Lis, October 2006

The Mexican independence movement began to take shape when José Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara (1774-1841) asked Miguel Hidalgo (1753-1811), the Roman Catholic priest in the town of Dolores, to help initiate an effort to free New Spain from Spanish control. Gutiérrez de Lara went to Washington DC to seek military support, while Hidalgo instructed his brother, Mauricio, together with a group of armed men, to set 80 inmates free early in the morning of 16 September 1810. Hidalgo ordered the church bells to be rung and, flanked by Ignacio Allende (1769-1811) and Juan Aldama (1774-1811), he addressed the people in front of his church, urging them to revolt in a speech which became known as the ‘Cry of Dolores’. The liberated country adopted Mexico as its official name, but Mexico's independence from Spain took a decade of war and the deaths of many of its proponents. Independence was achieved by the declaration of the Mexican Empire on 28 September 1821.