Tweehonderdjarige herdenking van het overlijden van G.E. Rumphius 1902 1902

This coin, commemorating G.E. Rumphius two hundred years after his death, was created by Jacob Jan van Goor in 1902. It’s got that great, early twentieth-century, almost art nouveau sensibility. The material’s everything here. You can feel the weight and coolness of the metal. The surface has this lovely, worn quality, like it's been handled and passed around, which, of course, it probably has. It’s interesting that a coin, something usually so mass-produced, can feel so intimate. The image of Rumphius, clutching these botanical specimens, and the inscription, sort of give a sense of his life and work. It reminds me a little of the portraits of scientists and explorers from that era, that same kind of romanticism. It also makes me think of the work of someone like Joseph Cornell, that impulse to collect and arrange objects in a way that tells a story. Ultimately, it's about history, memory, and the stories we tell ourselves about the past.