The English archaeologist and collector of Dutch origin James Millingen had a great influence on numismatics of the 19th century. Millingen was born in 1774, studied at Westminster School in London, where he attracted the attention of bibliophile and collector of old engravings Clayton Kreichrod. Thanks to communication with Kreichrod, the young man became interested in numismatics, and in the 1790s, after moving to Paris, he began to communicate with leading French archaeologists. Millingen got a job at the mint, but was arrested as a British subject by order of the National Convention - the parliament of the First French Republic. He was released in 1794, after the arrest of Robespierre and the end of the Terror.
After his release, the numismatist lived in France for some time. He settled in the city of Calais and after a failure in banking, he moved to Italy, where he immersed himself in archeology. Millingen collected information about coins, medals, Etruscan ceramics, and published a number of publications: "Description of Greek Coins" (1812), "Description of Coins from British Collections" (1831), "Reflections on the Numismatics of Ancient Italy" (1841), etc. In 1826, he published a work devoted to little-studied monuments of antiquity, in which he repeatedly turned to images of statues on various coins to identify and compare sculptures.
During this period, Millingen bought up antiquities in large quantities, and over time transferred them to European museums. More than a thousand items went to the British Museum: hundreds of coins, vases, several dozen sculptures. Here are presented ancient Greek coins minted in the classical era.
Source:
britishmuseum.org
