Last month’s column discussed Johann Christian Reich’s attempts between 1801 and 1805 to secure full-time employment at the United States Mint. The German engraver arrived in Philadelphia in August 1800 and was forced into indentured servitude. Although the mint’s Chief Engraver Henry Voight assumed Reich’s indenture in late 1801, the government’s finances did not allow the mint to hire a full-time engraver. For the next few years, Reich struggled to support himself.
Reich’s Private Medals
Although the mint commissioned Reich to engrave three pairs of dies for Indian Peace medals shortly after his indenture ended, work from the mint was not forthcoming. To support himself, Reich engraved dies for several private medals, the first of which was in partnership with Henry Voight. In late 1805, Reich partnered with Philadelphia silhouettist Joseph Sansom to produce the first of what would become a quartet of medals celebrating Founding Fathers George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. This medal featured a bust of Washington and the inscription G. WASHINGTON C.C.A.U.S. (the abbreviation for Commander in Chief, Armies of the United States). By the end of December that year, Sansom advertised that “a medal, worthy of the illustrious Washington, has been at length executed in Philadelphia, by a German artist, (J. Reich)” and offered examples “In gold, at 50 dollars, silver at 5.”
In the meantime, Reich was hard at work on a major commission for the United States Navy: dies for a gold medal that Congress had voted to award to Commodore Edward Preble for his “gallantry and good conduct” during the First Barbary War. The medal was large—64mm in diameter—and would require a level of artistry associated with the great mints of Europe.
Payment Disagreements
By April 1806, Reich had finished the commission but was told that the Navy’s agent found his bill for $850 to be “extravagantly high.” Having corresponded with President Thomas Jefferson before, Reich wasted no time drafting two letters of complaint to the nation’s chief executive. Although the president did not respond to these, a letter dated June 26, 1806, from Secretary of the Navy Robert Smith to President Jefferson explained that
The Navy agent has been instructed to pay to mr. Reich to the full amount of the memm. which you furnished me. This he will not accept. Presuming upon your friendly interposition he treats with disdain every proposition made by us. And he has allowed himself to talk so much about what you would direct to be done, that with some in Philada it has become a question whether you will interfere in such a case. If you do, I fear you will hereafter be much harassed by appeals from our decisions, as we often have to resist exorbetant [sic] demands.
The following day, Jefferson wrote a letter to Reich, pointing out that as minister to France, he had “been authorized by the old Congress […] to have the medals made for the revolutionary officers to whom they had voted them, and thereby become acquainted with the prices of that kind of work by the first artists in Europe.” The president then went on to explain that, based upon what he had paid “Duvivier, the king’s engraver, enjoying the general reputation of being the first in France, Dupré, a rising genius of great reputation, & even preferred to Duvivier by some amateurs, [and] Gateau, a man of eminence, but not equal to the others,” he had calculated that Reich’s work was worth $685. He added, “I cannot in my conscience say I think you entitled to more: because I think no man living entitled to more than Duvivier & Dupré.”
Reich’s Future at the Mint
Jefferson’s letter was apparently enough to satisfy Reich, and the engraver stopped writing to the president. However, on February 25, 1807, Sansom wrote to Jefferson that “I beg leave to enclose, for thy acceptance, a silver medal, upon the Retirement of Washington, which I flatter myself will meet thy approbation, as it has been executed by Reich—the head from a drawing of Stuarts.” This final medal, celebrating Washington’s relinquishment of the presidency, would start the chain of events that would lead to Reich’s appointment as U.S. Mint assistant engraver in 1807. Next month: Sansom’s Washington medal, coupled with concerns from Mint Director Robert Patterson, result in Reich’s appointment as assistant engraver.