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Teresa de Francisci: From Young Immigrant to Young Liberty

2022-03-28 18:00:00
Teresa de Francisci: From Young Immigrant to Young Liberty
Posted in: News, News

Teresa de Francisci: From Young Immigrant to Young Liberty

One of the most striking and unique depictions of Liberty comes from Anthony de Francisci’s Peace Dollar obverse. Between the sharp crown, the full lips, and the flowing hair, this image of Liberty is quite memorable and the inspiration for her came from someone very close to the designer, his wife Teresa de Francisci.

Teresa and Anthony Francisci had much in common as they were both immigrants who came  from Italy to America within a few years of each other. Teresa was proud of her heritage and was the first Italian-American to graduate from her high school in Clinton, Massachusetts. Two years after she graduated, she married Anthony de Francisci.

The honeymoon period was when Teresa became her husband’s muse. In December of 1920, Farran Zerbe was pushing for the creation of a Peace Coin, favoring the silver dollar since, in his words, “we gave our silver dollars to help win the war, we restore them in commemoration of victory and peace.” Congress would not pass the proposed bill and so it was held off until the next year. Zerbe and Peace Dollar supporters then realized that it had been more than 25 years since the Morgan Dollar was first struck, allowing a new design would only take the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury.

A competition was held that began in November 1921 and only allowed invited artists to apply. Among those invited were numismatic luminaries such as Hermon MacNeil, Adolph Weinman, and Victor D. Brenner as well as a new-comer to coin design, Anthony de Francisci. At that time, de Francisci had only applied his sculpting talents to adapting the design of the 1920 Maine Centennial Half Dollar which was based off a drawing by Maine-based-artist Harry Cochrane. Even though he had studied under James Earle Fraser and Hermon MacNeil, de Francisci did not have much faith in his submission to the Peace Dollar contest.

One huge hurdle that Anthony de Francisci faced in creating a vision of Liberty is that he did not have enough time or money to hire a professional model. The competition was to last less than a month, as President Harding aimed to formally declare an end of war with Germany. Instead, Anthony turned to his wife and asked her to sit in their Manhattan studio. He simply opened the window, causing her hair to blow in the wind, and allowed inspiration to guide him. Comparing Teresa to the depiction of Liberty on the Peace Dollar, it is clear that some artistic liberties were taken. De Francisci himself said in 1922 that his Liberty is not an exact replica of his wife, but she “expresses something of the spirit of the country – the intellectual speed and vigor and vitality America has, as well as its youth.”

When Teresa later wrote to her brother about the incident, she proudly said, “You remember how I was always posing as Liberty, and how brokenhearted I was when some other little girl was selected to play the role in the patriotic exercises in school? I thought of those days often while sitting as a model for Tony’s design, and now seeing myself as Miss Liberty on the new coin, it seems like the realization of my fondest childhood dream.”

Modern reflection on the design of Liberty can also see the influence that Augustus Saint-Gaudens had on Anthony de Francisci. The full lips and blowing hair can be traced to Saint-Gaudens Indian Head design that was used on the Gold Eagle from 1907 to 1933 and to Saint-Gaudens statue known as “Nike Erini” or “Victory,” produced circa 1903. The statue of “Victory” in particular features the same facial expression, flowing hair, and spiked headdress.

Combining the youth and vitality of his wife Teresa with his love of classic art by Saint-Gaudens, Anthony de Francisci was able to win over the judges and take home the grand prize of $1,500. Teresa told the story later that her husband has such little faith in his being able to beat the well-known artists, he bet everyone he knew one dollar that he would lose and then paid them with the first fifty silver Peace Dollars he received. While he did not design another coin, Anthony continued to use his wife as a model, with pieces now residing in the Smithsonian and other museums. After his death in 1964, Teresa lived a quiet life until she passed in 1990. Obituaries around the world declared that the face of the Peace Dollar had died at 92 years old.

To this day, collectors of Peace Dollars can see that Teresa de Francisci was not only an inspiration to her husband, but to the American dream. The silver dollar was so beloved that the U.S. Mint struck a limited number of 2021 Peace Dollars, honoring the design and the woman who inspired it.