Historical and Art Medals, Numismatic Books

France, Samuel Pozzi, 1905, a bronze medal by J.-C. Chaplain, bust left, rev. traité de gynécologie, robed female helping a naked women from a bed, watched by a robed skeleton, 68mm (PBE 90 and 99; ANS Exh. Cat. 1910, p.52, 17; Storer 2872; BDM VII, 175; cf. DNW 53, 1177). Extremely fine, very rare and a most interesting subject (£120-150)

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Collection of Art Medals formed by Hans-P. Wipfler.

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Plate XIII. Prof. Samuel Jean de Pozzi (1846-1918), from Bergerac, began to study medicine in Paris in 1869. He obtained his doctorate in 1873 and in 1883 was appointed surgeon at the Hôpital de Lourcine-Pascal, an appointment which saw him increasingly devote himself to gynaecology and become a pioneer in this field. However, his private life was riddled with scandal and the ‘elegant, decadent and diabolically handsome’ Pozzi was widely known to have had an affair with the married American lady Virginie Avegno Gautreau (1859-1915), the infamous Madame X of John Singer Sargent’s 1884 painting which shocked Parisian society; his many other lovers at this time also included Sarah Bernhardt. Pozzi was murdered in his consulting room on 13 June 1918 by a deranged patient whom he had operated on two years previously, and on whom he had refused to operate again; his murderer afterwards committed suicide. Numismatically, Pozzi is best known as an avid collector of Greek coins and statuettes, which were dispersed at auction by Naville et Cie in 1921 in the most important sale of its kind