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Auction: 9008 - The John Marshall Collection, other Ancient, British, World Coins, Comm Medals & Books
Lot: 127

Matthew Prior (1662 - 1721), silver uniface medal, undated and unsigned, nec elatvs nec dejectvs, bust left, wearing cap and shirt with open collar, 75mm. (MI.ii, 455, 64), extremely fine, a superb portrait, embossed and chased, in very high relief, extremely rare Estimate £ 3,000-4,000 Matthew Prior, poet, statesman, and diplomat, born 21 July 1662, was educated at Westminster and Cambridge. In 1690, through his patron, the Earl of Dorset, he was appointed Secretary to the Embassy which was sent that year to the Congress at the Hague. He was again employed as Secretary to the English negotiators at the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697, and in the following year he was Secretary to the Embassy to France, in which he continued both under the Earl of Portland and the Earl of Jersey. In 1711 he was one of the chief agents of the Government employed in negotiating the Treaty of Utrecht, for which he was afterwards accused of treason and confined in prison for two years without a trial. He died 18 September 1721. His poetical works are numerous and comprise odes, songs, epigrams, and tales. This medal was probably executed towards the end of his life, after he had experienced various vicissitudes of fortune.

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