Fourth portrait of HM Queen Elizabeth II, when she was 77 years old, facing right and surrounded by the inscription. On the right, the four pearls symbolise the four effigies that have graced Canadian coins and the double date of her reign.

Dei Gratia Regina (often abbreviated to D. G. Regina and seen as D·G·REGINA) is a Latin title meaning By the Grace of God, Queen.

Engraver: Susanna Blunt

Depicts a pair of wild geese, a cropped detail from a section (Panel 29) of Jean Paul Riopelle’s monumental fresco, L’Hommage à Rosa Luxemburg. Created in 1992, the 40-metre long, 30-panelled tryptic was one of Riopelle’s final and most significant works and features acrylic and spray-painted silhouettes – including the emblematic birds.

A coded meditation on love and loss, the art forms a symbolic representation of the life Riopelle shared with his former companion, American painter Joan Mitchell. The name of the piece, L’Hommage à Rosa Luxemburg, derives from a nickname given to Mitchell by Riopelle, “Rosa Malheur”—a reference to French painter Rosa Bonheur (1822–1899) and to Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919), a Polish-German revolutionary.

Unlike his signature mosaics, which he used a palette knife to produce, Riopelle used spray paint and acrylics to create this sprawling masterpiece. A variety of silhouettes are showcased and were created from real-life objects he placed and painted over. Today, L’Hommage à Rosa Luxemburg can be found on display at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec in Quebec City.