Masterpiece 2021 Una & the Lion 1kg Silver Proof Coin

Queen Victoria was born in 1819 and became Queen of the United Kingdom in 1837. Her reign covered a period of unprecedented scientific, political, social and industrial advancements, while the British Empire grew to become the greatest the world had ever seen. In 1878 Victoria was granted the additional title of Empress of India.

Victoria’s first coinage portrait was created in 1838 by William Wyon, Chief Engraver of The Royal Mint, whose ‘Young Head’ portrait proved so popular with the Queen that it graced the coins of her reign for nearly 50 years. Just one year later, to celebrate the first anniversary of Victoria’s coronation, William Wyon created one of the most iconic coins of the Victorian era: his Una & the Lion.

Una, the courageous heroine princess from Edmund Spenser’s medieval epic The Faerie Queene, is used here to personify the young Queen Victoria, all elegance and grace compared to the barely contained power of the lion at her side, a representation of the British nation under the guiding hand of its new Queen.

It is, without doubt, a Masterpiece.