Auction Catalogue

17 December 2007

Starting at 1:30 PM

.

Historical and Art Medals, Numismatic Books

Washington Mayfair Hotel  London  W1J 5HE

Lot

№ 1657

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17 December 2007

Hammer Price:
£190

United States of America, Death of Louis Agassiz, 1873, a copper medal by F.U. Landry, bust left, rev. legend in wreath, 91mm (BDM –). Extremely fine and very rare (£100-150)

Plate 12. Louis Agassiz (1807-73), scientist from Montier, Switzerland, studied anatomy under Cuvier in Paris and, as a professor at the Lyceum of Neuchâtel, was the first person to deduce that the Earth had been subjected to the Ice Age. He emigrated to the USA in 1846 and accepted a professorship at Harvard in 1848. He organised and acquired funding for the Museum of Comparative Zoology, which opened in 1860, was a founding member of the National Academy of Sciences and was appointed a regent of the Smithsonian in 1863. By the time of his death he was publicly recognised as America’s leading scientist