Olympe de Gouges rounds out the Women of France gold & silver coin releases for 2017
The third and last 2017 coin in the Monnaie de Paris series Women of France is now out and follows Catherine de Medici, and Madame de Pompadour this year, as well as three coins in 2016 featuring Clotilde, Mathilde and Jeanne d’Arc. This time we’ve moved forward to the eighteenth century with the early womans rights activist, Olympe de Gouges.
Designed to simulate the old hammered way of minting, called historical strike by the MdP, each coin made like this is subtley different, caused by the unbound edge of the blank flowing out under pressure just a small amount. It’s a style the MdP debuted with its beautiful From Clovis to Republic range and continued with in this Women of France series. The Royal Canadian Mint used it, albeit in antiqued form, on its excellent Ancient Canada fossil series.
Designed by modern French icon, Christian Lacroix, the coin reverse stays with the series norm and depicts a portrait of Olympe de Gouges upon it, wearing a fine stole around her neck. The lightly struck pattern in the background is present again, this time in the style of textile patterns of the period. Her name and dates of life are inscribed in a cool looking font. The obverse isn’t as well realised as previous coins, just a text quote from her famous publication, Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen, somewhat disappointing given some of the earlier designs have been quite stunning. It could be a sign that like the Clovis series, later coins will be less elegant as they lack the extraordinary sense of style that earlier century designs evoke. We shall see.
Two variants of this design again, the 0.900 silver version of 22.2 grams in weight and a 5,000 mintage, and a ¼oz gold capped at 1,000 units. Both come in the usual Monnaie de Paris small box and with a serialised certificate of authenticity. We’re a little late with this one, but it’s still available and still recommended. The silver is €55.00 and the gold €395.00. We’d love to see the Monnaie de Paris issue a historical series in this format, perhaps antiqued, that looks back at ancient coinage from the region, France having a quite varied history that’s full of interesting subjects.
2017 WOMEN OF FRANCE OLYMPE DE GOUGES GOLD COIN
Olympe de Gouges was born Marie Gouze on 7 May 1748 into a petit bourgeois family living in the town of Montauban, Quercy, in southwestern France. She believed that she was the illegitimate daughter of Jean-Jacques Lefranc, Marquis de Pompignan, and his rejection of her claims upon him may have influenced her passionate defense of the rights of illegitimate children. In 1770 she moved to Paris with her son and took the name Olympe de Gouges.
She began her career as a playwright in the early 1780s, becoming increasingly politically engaged to the level of writing political pamphlets. She became an outspoken advocate for improving the condition of slaves in the colonies of 1788. At the same time, she began Today she is perhaps best known as an early feminist who demanded that French women be given the same rights as French men. In her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen (1791), she challenged the practice of male authority and the notion of male-female inequality that wasn’t addressesd in the new constitution that year.
2017 WOMEN OF FRANCE OLYMPE DE GOUGES SILVER COIN
Although her beliefs fit in with the Revolution, not all of the Revolution’s theories fit in with her ideology. For instance, Olympe de Gouges opposed the extermination of the monarchical government. As the Revolution progressed, she became more and more vehement in her writings. Finally, her poster Les trois urnes, ou le salut de la Patrie, par un voyageur aérien (“The Three Urns, or the Salvation of the Fatherland, by an Aerial Traveller”) of 1793, led to her arrest. That piece demanded a plebiscite for a choice among three potential forms of government: the first, unitary republic, the second, a federalist government, or the third, a constitutional monarchy.
She spent three months in jail without an attorney, trying to defend herself. The presiding judge denied Gouges her legal right to a lawyer on the grounds that she was more than capable of representing herself. She was executed by guillotine on 3 November 1793 during the Reign of Terror for attacking the regime of the Revolutionary government and for her close relation with the Girondists. Her body was disposed of in the Madeleine Cemetery. (Source: Wikipedia)
SPECIFICATION
| NAME | 2017 WOMEN OF FRANCE SILVER | 2017 WOMEN OF FRANCE GOLD |
| DENOMINATION | €10 Euro | €50 Euro |
| COMPOSITION | 0.900 silver | 0.999 gold |
| WEIGHT | 22.2 grams | 7.78 g |
| DIAMETER | 37.00 mm | 22.00 mm |
| FINISH | Proof | Proof |
| MODIFICATIONS | Historical strike | Historical strike |
| MINTAGE | 5,000 | 1,000 |
| BOX / COA | Yes / Yes | Yes / Yes |
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