Full Description
This book aims to tell the story of social history through Money. Money and Art have shared a long history. Both words are metaphors derived from Latin terms used over 2,000 years ago. The word Money derives its modern meaning as the general term for all means of payment from its use as the word for coins in the pre-modern period. Particularly since the introduction of paper money, the word was applied to coins because of the name of the place where coins were made in ancient Rome, the temple of Juno Moneta (Juno the Warner), from this name the word moneta came to mean mint in Latin, and later the product of a mint, i.e. coins. The word Art acquired its modern usage, meaning works of art, both singularly and collectively, from the Latin ars meaning a skill, and it has so been used in English to describe any form of skill, but gradually from the nineteenth century, the word came to signify the product rather than the skill, particularly in relation to painting, graphic works and sculpture. This eclectic collection of stories brings together a multitude of perspectives through collections from the Ashmolean and around the world — from Art Nouveau bank notes and global portrayals of prosperity to activist Money Art. Deep dives into compelling stories reveal humour, hidden surprises and a tension between the power of money and the playfulness of art.
Contents
Foreword 7
Acknowledgements 8
Money and Art: Mixed Metaphors 11
Joe Cribb
King Edward VIII and the Coinage that Never Was 33
Graham Dyer
'Numismatibus ornatum': The Decorative Use of Ancient 51
and Modern Coins on Renaissance and Baroque Silver
Matthew Winterbottom
Manifest Munificence: Forms and Features of Goddess 57
Shri Lakshmi in Art and on Money
Shailendra Bhandare
'So little appeal ...' : Austrian Banknotes of the Fin de Siècle 69
Michael Gründner
Money - Art - Protest 85
Richard Kelleher
Imagi(ni)ng a Continent: Banknote Art in Colonial Africa 97
Shailendra Bhandare
The Coin of the Realm: Contemporary Money-Art 121
in Global Circulation
Sydney Smith
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), Money, and Art 131
Foteini Valeonti
Objects in Focus 138
Shreya Gupta
Catalogue of Objects in the Exhibition 173
Notes 195
Image Credits 199
