Medallion - Kirby Hall Lawfull Wedlock

Reverse

Façade of their home, Kirby Hall [Essex], hill to left with gazebo/temple (ornate circular building with columns) at the top. Three people standing on left, radiant sun top right. Lettering above, date in exergue with a shield dividing.

Script: Latin

Lettering:
KIRBY HALL
28 APR· 1774

Engraver: Thomas Pingo

Comment

One of a pair of 40th Wedding Anniversary Medals in base metal (the other in silver).
This unusual medal was a private commission in 1774 from noted medallist Thomas Pingo (1714-1776). It commemorates the fortieth wedding anniversary of Peter Muilman (d.1790) and his wife Mary Chiswell, the
daughter of a prominent merchant trading with Turkey.
 The obverse of the medal shows portraits of the couple, and the reverse shows an image of Kirby Hall in Essex, the home of the Muilman family. An illustration of this medal featured in the Gentleman’s Magazine when the
medal was first struck (volume LVIII p. 792). The medal was mentioned in the magazine a second time (in Muilman’s obituary) as being made ‘according to the Dutch fashion’.
 This group of objects contained a silver medal and a base metal medal (the two media in which it was issued), together with a printed image of the house in which the couple lived from the late eighteenth century.
 Peter Muilman, eminent Dutch merchant of Kirby Hall, Essex, married Mary Trench Chiswell daughter of Richard Chiswell of Debden Hall, near Newport and Saffron Walden.
 A copy of the silver version of this medallion is in the British Museum collection, donated by Dorothea, Lady Banks. Reference: BHM 191. Rated R3 - extremely rare.

 A view of the hall ...

 The modern-day Post Code of the Hall is CO9 3EB in Castle Hedingham, Essex, England.