- Object type
- Portrait Medals
- Date
- Production: 1566 - 1590
- Medallist
- Bernard Rantwic (active c.1566 - 1590)
- Subject(s)
-
Knights of Malta
Portraiture - Associated person
- Subject: Richard Shelley (c.1513 - 1589)
- Inscriptions
-
obverse: BERN RANTWIC F / RICARDUS SCELLEIS PRIOR ANGLAIE
reverse: PATRIARUM EXCUBITOR OPUM
- Dimensions
- Diameter: 70mm
- Materials and technique
- Bronze
- References
- Fincham, Henry Walter. Catalogue of the Museum at St. Johns Gate. Unpublished, Museum of the Order of St John, 1915.
- Credit line
-
Gift of Viscount Knutsford, 1913
Photographed with the support of James Drabble MStJ and Clare Drabble, 2017 - Catalogue number
- 1548
Grand Prior Richard Shelley
It is likely that this portrait medal was struck to commemorate Shelley’s appointment as Grand Prior of Order in England in 1566. At this time England was a Protestant country, and the Catholic Order did not have an active or formal presence under Elizabeth I, and so the Langue that Shelley oversaw was small and displaced, with little influence within the Order.