418, Lot: 572. Estimate $100. Sold for $75. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

FRANCE, Troisième République. 1870-1940. Æ Medal (68mm, 116.4 g). “Defense de la Patrie”. By Marie Lucien Coudray. Nude male figure standing right; behind to left, Marianne standing right, pointing to rihgt, and holding olive branch; pile of arms and armor to lower right / Firing range with stacks of rifles and various military implements around. EF.

Collector’s note: “This pre-WWI French art-nouveau medal celebrates the virtue of military preparedness. On obverse, an armored female personification of France with a nude draft-age male, standing before his plowed field, points him past his limited, bucolic vision. On reverse, military paraphernalia, bicycle, targets, no people, and a blank area for engraving. Coudray’s soft, gorgeous art-nouveau styling, typical of his always excellent medals, belie a militarism and nationalism worthy of the Germans!”