Five Pound Piece: Victoria (obverse); Una (reverse) (1839): Art, History and Details

Five Pound Piece: Victoria (obverse); Una (reverse) (1839) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is William Wyon (British, 1795–1851).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This piece was struck by the Royal Mint from gold purchased for the purpose. The current gold coins, such as the sovereign, were struck from gold supplied by the Bank of England. The larger gold pieces have their origins in the five and two guinea pieces. There are several minor varieties of this fine and rare piece, designed by William Wyon, R.A., a member of the celebrated family, still in existence, that had such a long and profound influence on British coin design. By some, this piece was considered to be too medallic for coinage purposes. Queen Victoria, at this date a young woman of 20, is shown as Una, Truth, because truth is one: one of the principal characters in Spenser's Faerie Queene (1590–1611). She is leading the lion referred to in her adventures in Spenser's work. It is often also referred to as the British lion. This coin is considered by many to be one of the most beautiful in the English series, and the standard of workmanship and striking has never been improved upon.

Object facts

• Title: Five Pound Piece: Victoria (obverse); Una (reverse)
• Date: 1839
• Creator attribution: William Wyon (British, 1795–1851)
• Culture: England, Victoria, 1837-1901
• Type: Coins
• Technique: gold
• Dimensions: Diameter: 3.7 cm (1 7/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Numismatics
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1969.217

A detail from the museum

This five-pound piece was never for circulation but instead for presentation and collectors.

Collection credit

The Norweb Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art, and Emery May Norweb. English Gold Coins, Ancient to Modern Times, On Loan to the Cleveland Museum of Art from the Norweb Collection. [Catalog. 1968.]

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.