Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria. To coincide with the OMRS Convention

The Boxer campaign medal awarded to Mr John Schonberg, the noted War Correspondent and Artist of many conflicts

China 1900, no clasp (J. Schonberg, War Correspondent) extremely fine and very rare £1200-1500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Awards to Civilians from the Collection of John Tamplin.

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John Nepomuk Schonberg was born in Vienna in about 1844, son of Adolf Schonberg (1813-68), and grandson of Johan Schonberg (1780-1863), both of whom were artists. John Schonberg, himself, also became a well-known war artist. He received his art education in Vienna, and in Munich where he studied under Piloti.

His first works for the Illustrated London News were some drawings executed in 1866 which depicted incidents of the Prusso-Austrian war. Other notable events at which he was present were the Servo-Turkish war of 1876-77, the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78, the inundation of Szegedin in 1879, the Egyptian campaign of 1882, and the Servo-Bulgarian war of 1885.

He was at Hamburg during the cholera epidemic; at Sigmaringen for the wedding of the Crown Prince of Roumania, and, going on to Bucharest at the special request of the King, attended the special reception there. Schonberg was persona grata at the Roumanian Court. In the campaign of 1877, the then Prince of Roumania took a great interest in his work, and on many occasions afterwards he journeyed to paint pictures for the King’s gallery under Royal command in Bucharest.

During the Boer War, Schonberg accepted an extraordinary assignment from The Sphere. “Will you,” Mr Schonberg was asked, “go to Pretoria for The Sphere ? You are to set aside for the moment all interest in England; you are to forget the English language from the hour you arrive in South Africa; you are to carry an Austrian passport with you to Pretoria, and to speak nothing but German from the moment you arrive until the hour of leaving the enemy’s country. You are to represent, nominally, a German newspaper if one will consent to accept occasional drawings from you.”

Schonberg accepted and proceeded to South Africa as special artist for the Gartenlaube. From November 1899 to May 1900, Schonberg was the clandestine special artist and correspondent for The Sphere in Pretoria with the Boers. He was even granted an interview with Joubert himself and sketched him at his headquarters at Modderspruit. After accompanying the Boer forces for a few days, Schonberg returned to Pretoria and sketched various scenes and incidents in the city, including the British prisoners and the State Model School from where Winston Churchill had escaped. Then, for some inexplicable reason, he received a telegram from Germany saying ‘London requests you to remain.’ Naturally the Boers became suspicious and Schonberg, who had been wounded in an earlier incident, made a hasty retreat from the Transvaal through Lourenço Marques and back to England.


On his return from South Africa, Schonberg rejoined the staff of The Illustrated London News and was sent to cover the Boxer Rebellion in China. Many of his very pleasing and attractive sketches were reproduced in that paper from October 1900 onwards. There are four of his sketches illustrated in The Siege of Peking by Peter Fleming, published in 1959. Schonberg was one of only 10 War Correspondents to receive the China War medal, all without clasp except that to William Whittall, of Reuter’s Agency, who received the clasp for the Relief of Pekin. Sold with further research.