page_title: Lafayette dollar
section_title: Design
hierarchical_section_title: Lafayette dollar / Design
caption_attribution_description: English: 1776 Washington Before Boston Comitia Americana Second Restrike, (Baker-48G) (obv) (1100-28010)
context_page_description: The Lafayette dollar was a silver coin issued as part of the United States' participation in the Paris World's Fair of 1900. Depicting Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette with George Washington, and designed by Chief Engraver Charles E. Barber, it was the only U.S. silver dollar commemorative prior to 1983, and the first U.S. coin to depict American citizens.
  Beginning in 1898, prominent Americans sought to erect in Paris a monument to Lafayette, a Frenchman who fought in the American Revolutionary War. Among these supporters was Chicago businessman Ferdinand Peck, whom President William McKinley chose as commissioner-general to the exposition. Peck made the monument proposal a part of the American plans for Paris, and appointed the Lafayette Memorial Commission to raise funds for it. A part of this fundraising was the one-dollar commemorative coin, approved by Congress on March 3, 1899.
  Conjoined busts of Washington and Lafayette appear on the obverse. Barber stated that the bases for his work were a sculpture of Washington by Jean-Antoine Houdon, and an 1824 medal of Lafayette by François-Augustin Caunois.
context_section_description: The obverse of the Lafayette dollar features jugate, or conjoined, heads of Washington and Lafayette. Slabaugh noted Barber's account that the busts were based on the sculpture by Houdon and the medal by Caunois, but, "possibly these did have some effect on the design but it has always been my belief that the immediate source or idea for the design was the Yorktown Centennial medal of 1881." Swiatek and Breen contended that although the ultimate ancestor of Barber's depiction of Washington was the Houdon bust, the source of the Lafayette bust and the format of the obverse "was beyond doubt Peter L. Krider's Yorktown Centennial Medal (1881)". Krider, a Philadelphia engraver not employed by the Mint, issued a number of tokens and medals in the 1870s and 1880s. "United States of America" and "Lafayette Dollar" appear at the top and bottom of the obverse of the coin.
  The reverse is based on an early sketch of the statue of Lafayette by Bartlett. It depicts a mounted statue of Lafayette, riding left.   Barber's monogram does not appear on the coin, but the name "Bartlett" is inscribed on the base of the statue. Also on the base, and extending below it, is a palm branch. The reverse inscription, "Erected by the youth of the United States in honor of Gen Lafayette/Paris 1900" is a tribute to the school fundraising efforts that took place in 1898. Swiatek and Breen pointed out that even if one grants that the 1900 date was intended to be that of the exposition and the erection of the statue, the coins would still violate the 1873 act, that required the date of mintage to appear on the coins, and thus "the Lafayette dollars are technically undated and therefore illegal!"
  On the reverse, Lafayette holds a sword, extended upwards. Bartlett described the version of the statue that Barber worked from: "Lafayette is represented in the statue as a fact and a symbol, offering his sword and services to the American colonists in the cause of liberty. He appears as the emblem of the aristocratic and enthusiastic sympathy shown by France to our forefathers." Swiatek and Breen noted, "We may take Lafayette's pose on the statue, as depicted on the coin, to represent him in triumphal procession rather than charging against the enemy—note his sheathed sword, like a Highland pipe major's baton, serving as a standard rather than brandished unsheathed as a weapon."
  Barber's design for the Lafayette dollar has often been criticized. Swiatek and Breen complained about the "lifeless head of the President [Washington]". Q. David Bowers stated that "the shallow relief of Barber's work is but a travesty of Krider's extremely detailed high-relief artistry". According to Don Taxay, "When one compares Barber's portraits to those by Du Vivier  [sic] and Caunois, it is clear why [sculptor and Barber enemy] Saint-Gaudens used to refer contemptuously to the 'commercial medalists of the Mint'. The difference here is not merely in the relief, but in elementary modeling skill." Art historian Cornelius Vermeule stated that, "the Lafayette dollar lacks the quaint, dated appeal of the Isabella quarter or the amusing originality of the Columbian half-dollar. Despite the necessity for low relief the jugate busts are too linear. The reverse suffers from too much lettering of uniform size. The words 'Paris 1900' might have been enough; at most, the addition of 'From the Youth of the United States' would have conveyed the matter."
caption: The obverse of the "Washington Before Boston" medal was the first medallic use of Houdon's bust.
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