Celebrating the Works of Art Nouveau’s Founder: The Alphonse Mucha Collection

Posted on April 14, 2017

Available through JM Bullion as one of the exclusive dealers, the Mucha Silver Round collection celebrates some of the greatest works of Alphonse Mucha. When complete, a total of six different designs and six different silver round options will be available for each new design released. If ever there was a silver round collection worth every penny, it is this newest offering of precious metal products from Anonymous Mint. Explore the Mucha Silver Round collection below.

Who is Alphonse Mucha?

Alphonse Maria Mucha was born in Moravia in the Austrian Empire (now the Czech Republic) in July 1860. He would go on to become a famed Czech art nouveau painter and decorative artist who is considered by many to be the father of the art nouveau movement. He was an active artist, creating new designs and paintings up until his death in 1939.

Mucha’s career started at the age of 17 when he began to publish some of his artist works on advertising and promotional posters while following his passion in the study of arts in Munich. By the 1890s, he had moved to Paris to continue the pursuit of his dreams and further his artistic studies at the same time.

Mucha was active during the art nouveau movement between 1890 and 1910, a time period generally viewed as the height of that movement. Today, most look back and consider his works to be the founding cornerstone of the art nouveau movement, making him the widely regarded farther of the movement itself. Most importantly though, his works featuring beautiful women in various poses are considered catalysts for the movement as a whole.

Outside of his depictions of beautiful women, Mucha was immensely active in contributing through various other art forms. Starting in 1895 he completed a variety of ad posters, paintings, and book illustrations that catapulted his career, but he was also involved in the design of postage stamps, banknotes, and even government documents for the newly independent Czechoslovakia following World War I, up until his death in 1939.

The Mucha Collection Silver Rounds

The new Mucha Silver Round collection from Anonymous Mint is one of the most diverse silver round programs you’ll find, and it is an excellent example of the diversity of silver for sale in the precious metals industry. There are scheduled to be a total of six designs from Mucha’s most famous works of the art nouveau movement included in this collection. The so-called “beautiful women” depicted are JOB, Champagne, Rose, Ivy, Dance, and Laurel, in order.

With the release of each new round, which includes .999 pure silver content and edge lettering of the unique serial number for the individual round, you’ll find four options to purchase. Below are the four types of rounds available with each new design release, and the mintage limit for those styles:

• 1 oz Antique rounds – mintage limit 2,000 rounds
• 1 oz Proof rounds – mintage limit 3,000 rounds
• 5 oz Antique rounds – mintage limit 500 rounds
• 5 oz Proof rounds – mintage limit 500 rounds

For each proof round released, you’ll notice a beautiful mirrored proof finish, with brilliantly clear background fields. Each of the antique releases in the Mucha Silver Round collection includes a brilliant antique finish that adds depth to the design, as well as warmth and age to its appearance. All of the Mucha Rounds ship inside of protective plastic capsules and include an individually numbered Certificate of Authenticity.

The Mucha Women

Mucha was known for using the figures of beautiful women in his designs, and the concept of “Mucha Women” became an accepted term during his long career to describe the various beautiful female forms he selected for his designs. Among those which are featured in the Mucha Collection, you’ll find the following:

• Job: The first release in the Mucha Silver Round series is the famous image of JOB. His first major artistic piece to garner wide attention for his work, Mucha completed the design of Job in 1896, and it went on to become one of the most famous advertising posters of its day in Europe. Job is a trademark for the Joseph Bardou Company, which manufactures cigarette paper. That is reflected in Job’s figure holding a lit cigarette in her right hand while smoke rises and intertwines with her hair.
• Champagne: The image of Champagne was originally commissioned by F. Champenois and appeared on the Exposition d’Affiches Artistiques Fracaises and Etrangeres in the city of Rheims, France, in November 1896. Following its debut, Champagne would go on to be used by numerous other clients of Mucha for ads and imagery, and was featured on a primary ad for the exposition with a glass of champagne in her hand. Much like Job, Champagne was a beautiful woman with flowing hair.
• Rose: The Flower Series was a collection of four posters created by Mucha between 1895 and 1900. These appeared originally in Les Maitres de l’Affiche, a monthly publication from Jules Cheret that featured some of the best posters of the day as selected by Cheret. Rose appeared as the first of these released, arriving as the first of two released in 1898. As with all Mucha designs of the day, Rose was a beautiful woman with suggestive gestures included in the design. Throughout The Flower Series, Mucha used decorative flowers and flowing hair in concert with subtle, yet striking color combinations.
• Ivy: The printer F. Champenois took many of Mucha’s most popular works and commercialized them, giving his work wider recognition because many were recycled for use by various clients in advertising campaigns. The fourth release in the collection, the woman nown as Ivy was designed by Mucha in 1901 on an artistic poster for the dancer Lygie. In fact, it is said that her image inspired the look of Ivy in the print. The decorative image of Ivy goes together with the later introduction of Laurel in the collection, and features ivy foliage that transforms the circular frame of the original artwork by Mucha into an oblong shape. The two pieces were eventually reproduced as decorative plates for sale.
• Dance: Dance was the fourth design in a series from Mucha known as The Arts. Other figures included in this four-part series of images include Painting, Poetry, and Music. As with all “Mucha Women,” Dance exudes beauty in her figure and is considered by many to be one of his most seductive women ever drawn. These rounds feature the sinuous figure and long, swaying hair of Dance on the reverse. She is depicted looking back over her shoulder at you, her figure tight as she stands on her tiptoes while her auburn hair flows in the breeze.
• Laurel is one of two designs, together with Ivy, that were initially commissioned with Mucha by a popular dancer of the day known as Lygie. Both works were created in 1901, and Laurel would go on to enjoy wider circulation. Laurel first appeared in the interior of the Boutique Fourquet, and was later used on a calendar for a signage company by the name of Dewez. Her eyes are unique in a Mucha design, in that they’re set looking downward. Most of Mucha’s women figures were looking right at the viewer with a seductive or otherwise sultry gaze.

The Team Behind the Series

The Anonymous Mint worked with coin creator Julie Lindquist on the designs used in the Mucha Collection, with Italian Master Sculptor Luigi Badia engraving those designs onto dies for striking. The Mucha Foundation, which catalogs and preserves Mucha’s works, authorized this release of six designs.

Upcoming Addition

On top of offering the six designs mentioned above in the two weights (1 oz and 5 oz) and finishes (proof and antique), Anonymous Mint will also be releasing the six designs with a colorized finish in both the 1 oz and 5 oz weights. To date, only the Colorized Job Silver Round and Colorized Dance Silver Round have been released.