Printers’ Medals

4.06 Printers' medals.jpg

Title

Printers’ Medals

Date

1558–ca. 1903.

Description

The Grolier Club has a large and interesting collection of medals relating specifically to printing, bookselling, collecting, and the book arts. Displayed is a group of medals issued in 1840 to commemorate the four hundredth anniversary of the invention of printing, mounted inside the front cover of the Club’s copy of F. Dingelstedt’s Jean Gutenberg, premier maître imprimeur (Genève: Fick, 1858), specially bound by Meunier. These face a group of medals honoring (center) Robert Estienne (1903?); and (clockwise from top center) Giambattista Bodoni (1802); Benjamin Franklin (1786); Firmin Didot (1857); Jean Grolier, in the form of a silver jeton cast for Grolier to mark the “Reunion du Royaume de France” (1558); Alois Senefelder (1896?); and Jacques Auguste de Thou (1817).