Commemorative, Historical and Art Medals

Medals of the Early Colonial Period and the European Heritage, Capture of a Spanish Treasure Ship off St. Helena, 1602, a silver medal, unsigned, mm. castle on obv. only [Middelburg], horse leaping into the New World, pursued by the Lion of Zeeland, legend on two scrolls, rev. Dutch warships outmanoeuvre the Spanish galleon San Lago off St. Helena, 52mm, 38.10g (van Loon I, 564; Betts 21; MH 489). Extremely fine and attractively toned, very rare £4,000-6,000

Provenance: Sotheby Auction, 8 July 1997, lot 166.

The Spanish treasure ship was captured off Jamestown, St. Helena, by two ships of the state of Zeeland under the command of Gerald de Rooi and Laurents Bikker. The treasure captured, in jewels and silks, amounted to about one and a half million gulden. The medal was commissioned by the owners of the two Dutch merchantmen and its design mocks the Spanish Empire as the horse leaping into the New World was the device of Philip II, as was the motto in the legend non svfficit orbis