Václav Kříž

Life and work

According to the authority records of the National Library of the Czech Republic he was born on 2 January 1841 in Slivenec near Prague and died on 21 May 1887 in Prague. The exact date of birth given by the National Library makes 1841 more probable than the year 1830 under which some auction catalogues list him. Details of his training, workshop and later life could not be verified in the available sources; no comprehensive biography or catalogue of his work is known.

Coins and medals

His work centres on struck medals in tin, bronze and silver of the kind commissioned by ecclesiastical, agricultural and civic institutions during the Czech National Revival and the flourishing of associational life. Auction catalogues record a tin medal of 1873 for the start of the completion of St Vitus Cathedral, issued by the Archdiocese of Prague, with the figure of St Wenceslas on the obverse. Also documented are undated silver award medals of the Agricultural Council for the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Society for the Improvement of Small Animals and the Central Provincial Beekeepers' Association. These works show Kříž as an engraver to whom the institutions of Czech economic and associational life turned.

From the work in the AUREA range

The AUREA range includes his tin medal of 1873, 41 mm, issued for the centenary of the birth of Josef Jungmann (1773–1847) and inscribed In Memory of His Birth a Hundred Years Ago. The medal commemorates one of the central figures of the Czech National Revival and was made in the same year as his medal for the completion of St Vitus Cathedral.