Chameleon: CM.1033-2009

Titles

Chameleon

Maker(s)

Radcliffe, Theresa
Production place: Britain

Entities

• Britain
• The British Art Medal Society

Categories

• Medal

Description

Chameleon

Notes

History note: The Graham Pollard Collection of Medals and Plaquettes, consisting of 276 medals and two plaquettes of the Renaissance and later. This was a selection made to complement the Fitzwilliam’s collection, chosen from a much larger number. His son, Lawrence Pollard, had already donated his papers, his slide collection and selected books and offprints. Graham Pollard (1929-2007) was the leading authority on Italian Renaissance Medals in the post-War period. His entire career was spent at the Fitzwilliam Museum rising from a Gallery Attendant in 1947 to become Keeper of Coins and Medals (1966-1988) and Deputy Director (1969-1988). He was a founding member and the first Chairman of the British Art Medal Society in 1982. His publications include a three-volume catalogue of the Renaissance Medals in the Bargello Museum, Florence (1984-5), and two-volume catalogue of the Renaissance Medals in the National Gallery Washington (2007). As a condition of the AIL allocation all items must be labelled ‘Accepted by HM Government in Lieu of Inheritance Tax and allocated to the Fitzwilliam Museum, 2009’. Lawrence Pollard has given permission for his father’s name to be associated with the collection. Note on Provenances: There are very few medals in the collection that retain any information about how or when they were acquired. A significant number of them belonged to a collection of medals bought by Mr Pollard in 1947 or 1948 from a closing-down sale of a Cambridge antique shop after the owner’s death. According to Mr Pollard, this group included the Borghese Borghesi medal (779). In other cases he bought pieces from coin and medal dealers or at auction, but no record of these transactions has been preserved.