Description

Every year, this series honours three important women in French history. For this third year, it enters the 19th century with a French empress, a queen of Sweden and a woman of letters. These coins feature a “free strike” that highlights backgrounds inspired by rich textile motifs from that era.

Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin (1804–1876), best known by her nom de plume George Sand, was a French novelist and memoirist.

George Sand counts among the most influential writers of her time. Strong advocate for women rights, she was committed to the revolution of 1848. Moreover, George Sand scandalizes due to her hectic love life, her masculine dress code and her masculine pseudonym. She was an active contributor to intellectual life of the society at this time. She was very close to influential artists such as, Honoré de Balzac, Gustave Flaubert, Eugène Delacroix, Victor Hugo and particularly Frederic Chopin with whom she had a seven years relationship.

Obverse

Depicts a portrait of George Sand wearing a masculine outfit and top hat. All of that surrounded by her dates and name. In the background, there is a tapestry coming from the Nohant Castle, the writer’s house, acquired by her paternal grandmother. To either side of her portrait are the parts of her name, GEORGE and SAND. Below her truncation are the years of her birth and death, 1804-1876.

GEORGE SAND
1804-1876

Reverse

Depicts George Sand and Frédéric Chopin during the time they were in a relationship together inspired by Delacroix’ painting. The background contains a music score composed by Chopin during the same time.

Frédéric François Chopin (1810–1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era who wrote primarily for solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown as a leading musician of his era, one whose poetic genius was based on a professional technique that was without equal in his generation.

The Portrait of Frédéric Chopin and George Sand was an 1838 unfinished oil-on-canvas painting by French artist Eugène Delacroix. Originally a double portrait, it was later cut in two and sold off as separate pieces. It showed composer Frédéric Chopin (1810–49) playing piano while writer George Sand (1804–76) sits to his right, listening and sewing (a favorite activity of hers). The sitters were lovers at the time, and both were close friends of the artist.

Arcing around the scene, starting from the middle left side and continuing to the middle right, is the inscription. Beneath it are the initials RF for the French Republic, at the bottom of the reverse the denomination, and the date of issuance. To the left of the date is a cornucopia, the Paris Mint mintmark. In a similar position on the opposite side is the mark of current the Paris Mint director Yves Sampo – a pentagon containing the letters AG, MP and YS.

FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN . GEORGE SAND 1838
R
F
200 EURO
2018

Edge

200 Euro

KM# 2541
Characteristics
Type Commemorative Issue (Non-circulating)
Material Gold
Fineness 0.999
Weight 31.104 g
Diameter 37 mm
Thickness -
Shape round
Alignment Medal
Mint
Paris Mint (A)

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