Commemorative medal for the La Pérouse expedition which sailed in June 1785

The medal was designed by the celebrated Benjamin Duvivier, chief engraver at the French mint until 1791. Only one hundred such examples were minted for the sailing of La Pérouse in June 1785, some in bronze and some in silver: although the actual number of each is still open to speculation, the bronze issue of this particular medal was evidently still vey small, perhaps as few as fifty. Although the voyage was primarily one of scientific discovery, it also had explicit ‘Political and Commercial Objects’ (Spate, Paradise Found and Lost, p. 157); thus the minting of medals for trade with the South Sea islanders was obviously thought to be expedient. Indeed, the official accounts of the voyage include a staggering array of goods and baubles, taken along as gifts or for exchange. It includes a total of 700 medals, the first 600 simple medals in bronze and silver with only the effigy of the king, and 100 more elaborate medals, as here, which also give details of the voyage.

This rarer category is listed as ‘Medailles d’argent ou de bronze, a effigie du roi, avec l’inscription portant les noms des batiments et ‘l’epoque du voyage, les unes avec des chaines de meme metal, les autres sans chaines, 100’. Curiously, as is often seen with examples of the bronze issue, the obverse bust of Louis is signed ‘Duvivier fecit 1778’. Seemingly one side of some of the medals taken were in some sense unused stock.
The appearance of the two silver and bronze versions is effectively identical. Having said that, there are small discrepancies in Duvivier’s name beneath the bust: here, “B. Duvivier F.” appears to have been newly lettered when compared with the example of the bronze issue. It would also seem that the date “1778”, the apparent date that the bust was struck, has been removed from either the die or the medal itself.