Overlijden van Pierre Simons, ingenieur van de Belgische spoorwegen 1843

This is Adrien Hippolyte Veyrat's metal commemorative medal for the death of Pierre Simons, an engineer with the Belgian railways. The medal presents a study in contrasts, with the sharply defined profile of Simons on one side and the dense text memorializing his achievements on the other. Consider the circular form: it's a shape that implies completeness and continuity. But here, that sense of wholeness is disrupted by the division of the medal into two distinct realms: the representational portrait and the linguistic inscription. This duality invites us to contemplate how we construct and remember individuals. The portrait, with its classical profile, seeks to immortalize Simons through an idealized image. The inscription, however, grounds him in the specifics of his professional life, listing his accomplishments. This contrast reflects a tension between individual identity and public persona, between the visual and the textual, raising questions about the nature of commemoration itself. Is it through image or word that we best capture a life? This medal suggests that both are necessary, yet inherently incomplete.