Jacques Wiener was the eldest of three brothers who were successful Jewish Flemish medalists and engravers. His innovation was the idea of precisely engraving the exterior and interior of a building on the two sides of a medal, an approach that he employed for notable Belgian churches as well as a series of forty-one medals depicting Europe’s most important buildings. Jewish subjects included the Opening of the Jewish Home for the Aged in The Hague (1841) and the Opening of the Synagogue in Cologne (1861). Wiener also engraved the first Belgian postage stamp, an image of King Leopold I that was the first stamp issued on the European continent.
This medal for St. Stephanskirche in Vienna provides an example of the style innovated by its engraver Jacques Wiener (1815–1899), in which the exterior of a building appears on one side and the…
We live in a time of Sturm und Drang [storm and stress]. Every day brings new disappointments and new hopes. Old forms lose their value, no new ones are being created. And the synthetic gaze of…
The Kinah [Lament] in Honor of Those Who Died in the Earthquake
Wail O [professional female] mourners for the suffering of our death.
The earth trembled with the earthquakes. We lost young and old…