The Silich Collection of Historical and Art Medals

David Silich

Noonans are both proud and excited to have been chosen to sell the extremely important collection of historical and art medals formed by the late David Silich. The dispersal will take place in a series of eight auctions taking place between March 2024 and October 2027.

The first two auctions will feature work by over 900 different artists, medallists and sculptors - testament to the breadth of the collection, which numbers upwards of 3,500 pieces. The decision to catalogue it alphabetically by artist is a road infrequently travelled outside mainland Europe, but was taken in order to demonstrate the vast range of medallic sculpture available to present-day
collectors and students. Here you will find medals from all corners of the globe, from Canada to New Zealand, Chile to Japan, brought together by one man’s passion for the subject. Indeed, the cataloguer has enjoyed corresponding with, and speaking to, many of the contemporary medallists whose work features in these pages. The remaining six auctions will explore the work of many of David’s favoured artists in depth. All eight sale catalogues will feature illustrations of all the medals within them, on the lines of those in Martin Heidemann’s 1998 masterwork, Medaillenkunst in Deutschland von 1895 bis 1914 (DGMK 8), so in turn will form an invaluable record of the collection, which was always David’s aim.

David Nicholas Silich (10 July 1944–12 February 2018) was born in Whangarei, New Zealand, and was educated at Whangarei Boys High School. Emigrating to London in his twenties, he subsequently built an extremely successful career in the European financial sector. Attracted to fine craftsmanship, he had already formed a collection of Renaissance medals by the time he became an early member of the British Art Medal Society. Turning his attention to later and more contemporary series in the early 1980s, he subsequently amassed a huge range of pieces, all carefully organised on display trays, which those of us fortunate enough to visit him in his offices in St Moritz will always remember.

Having been keen on art medals myself since the early 1990s, it was not long before Dix Noonan Webb’s links with the late Jean-Claude Baudey led to an introduction to David. By the end of that decade, DNW were becoming the pre-eminent auctioneers of art medals in London, and David was a keen follower of our activities, bidding either in person or on the telephone, or else instructing other London-based dealers and contacts, including Martin Bonham Carter, to bid for him. Prices weren’t usually discussed; if something attracted his attention, it rarely got away
from him - but if it did, he always found something else to acquire instead.

Apart from his many generous donations to the British Museum described by Philip Attwood, David was a donor of medals to other institutions, most notably Harvard University Art Musuem in New York, which received a number of gifts in the name of Corina and David Silich-von-Schulthess in memory of Dr Leo Mildenberg (1913-2001), whose personal kindness as a young numismatist I remember very well, and whose Bank Leu firm dominated commercial Greek numismatics for decades.

In later years, David spent six months a year in his native New Zealand, at Papakura, a suburb of Auckland. It was here that he became a major collector of New Zealand art, both representational and abstract, which was dispersed by the International Art Centre in Parnell, Auckland, in October 2021.

David is survived by his wife Corina, sons Nicholas and Alexander, and grandchildren Rosina, Richard and Eduard.

Peter Preston-Morley
Noonans Mayfair