To Commemorate the Founding of the Free "City of London School" in 1834 1834

Curator: Here we have a bronze relief created by Benjamin Wyon in 1834, "To Commemorate the Founding of the Free 'City of London School'". Editor: Its somberness is immediately striking; the color is heavy, as is its dedication to such stoic symmetry in representing this institutional building. Curator: Indeed. Note the artist's skillful deployment of low relief. The architectural detailing of the school – the crenellations, arched windows – it's all meticulously rendered despite the scale, conforming to the decorative academic style. Editor: Considering Wyon’s lineage, that being a family tradition of die engravers, do you think this work then should really be assessed not for the aesthetics, but by thinking about the socioeconomic function of the artifact? For whom would Wyon labor to produce something so formal, so clearly to cement civic virtue in the rising capitalist class? Curator: Your point about production carries weight. However, let’s not diminish the intrinsic composition: the centralized building and the circular composition create a closed formalistic reading that invites the gaze in. Wyon uses linear precision to contain its subject, the "City of London School," but its symmetry acts also as visual metaphor. Editor: The very materiality whispers of labor – the labor of mining, refining, and casting. But moreover the labor, the opportunity that the City of London School represents for the families that inhabit the London’s city limits: to elevate their offspring. Curator: Very well, let’s accept both readings. By doing so, it permits the possibility that the symmetry not only echoes the School’s balanced curriculum, it might hint at something far deeper. A society held fast by balanced systems of wealth that have their base in natural extraction and labor itself. Editor: Exactly! The medal functions as more than a commemorative object. Wyon delivers the promise of the possibility of wealth through access and its relationship with production. Curator: Seeing both aspects enriches the image. Editor: Yes, this commemorative medal is at once aesthetically arresting but equally invites conversations that extend into social considerations related to Victorian labor structures.