Today's featured item on our online shop is this magnificent 1851 The Great Exhibition Commemorative Medal by Allen & Moore. This piece is an extremely fine example with only minor marks.
Allen & Moore was a British manufacturer of medals. The company was formed in 1844 as a partnership between Joseph Moore and John Allen. They were both former apprentices of Thomas Halliday, the leading die-sinker in Birmingham in the first half of the nineteenth century, who trained most of the medal makers of the period.
The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, also known as the Great Exhibition or the Crystal Palace Exhibition, was an international exhibition which took place in Hyde Park, London, from 1 May to 15 October 1851. It was the first in a series of World's Fairs, exhibitions of culture and industry that became popular in the 19th century. The event was organised by Henry Cole and by Prince Albert, husband of the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria. Famous people of the time attended the Great Exhibition, including Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Michael Faraday (who assisted with the planning and judging of exhibits), Samuel Colt, members of the Orléanist Royal Family and the writers Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, George Eliot, Alfred Tennyson and William Makepeace Thackeray.
Obverse: Conjoined busts left in a round frame, royal regalia above with oak and laurel wreath to the sides.
Lettering: QUEEN VICTORIA & / PR. ALBERT
Reverse: View of the Exhibition building. THE INTERNATIONAL INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION LONDON 1851. Ex. PROPOSED BY H.R.H. PRINCE ALBERT, DESIGNED BY JOSEPH PAXTON ESQ. F.L.S., ERECTED BY FOX, HENDERSON & Co. LENGTH 1848 FEET. WIDTH 456 FEET, HEIGHT OF PRINCIPAL ROOF 66 FEET OCCUPIES 18 ACRES OF GROUND, ESTIMATED VALUE £150,000.
