Featured United States of Belgium / Brabant Revolution / Insurrection Coinage

SILVER 10 SOLS - UNITED STATES OF BELGIUM
Year: 1790



Obverse: Brabant lion standing right - MON NOV ARG PROV FOED BELG / 1790 (mint mark)

Reverse: Two hands shaking, arrows behind - IN VNIONE SALVS / X-SOLS

Verenigde Belgische Staten - États-Belgiques-Unis - United States of Belgium / Insurrection Coinage / Belgian Revolution of 1789-1790 or Brabant Revolution, Revolt against Joseph II (HRE) / designed by Theodore Van Berckel, engraver at the Brussels Mint. The bundle of 11 arrows representing 11 provinces: East Flanders, West Flanders, Brabant, Hainault, Tournai, Namur, Luxembourg, Liège, Limburg, Antwerp and Mechelen.

The obverse of this coin shows the Brabant lion standing (rampant) facing right with the inscription MON(eta) NOV(us) ARG(ent) PROV(inciae) FOED(eratus) BELG(ica) / New Silver Money of the Federated Provinces of Belgium. Below the lion is the date 1790 with the face of an angel in between the 7 and 9. This is the mint mark of the Brussels mint.

The reverse of the coin depicts hands emerging from clouds shaking with 11 arrows behind for the eleven states that broke away from Austrian rule. Across the top are the words IN VNIONE SALVS / In Unity is Salvation. Below the hands and arrows is the denomination X SOLS.

The lion is called the Brabant lion as The Duchy of Brabant had taken the lead in what became known as the Brabant Revolution, an insurrection against Emperor Joseph II, and afterwards dominated the resulting union. Thus the Lion of Brabant (a lion rampant or, armed and langued gules) became a symbol for the federation and remains the major part of the modern coat of arms of Belgium. So too is the motto which remains one of two official mottos of the modern state of Belgium. The coin stresses unity above all else.

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The United States of Belgium was a short lived confederation of eleven states in the Southern Netherlands which formed in early January 1790 as a result of a general revolt (Brabant Revolution or Belgian Revolution of 1789-90) against the Holy Roman Empire under the rule of Joseph II.

Joseph II of the house of Habsburg-Lorraine was little more than a silent junior partner when he succeeded his father, Francis I, as Holy Roman Emperor in 1765. His mother, Maria-Theresa of Austria, continued to be the true head of state as she was under his father's rule. Upon the death of his mother in 1780 he became sole ruler and he immediately began to issue waves of sweeping state, religious, and social reforms.

Joseph was a liberal reformer who looked to secularize education and open it to greater numbers of the populace while taking steps to diminish the role of the clergy in state affairs. He reclaimed church lands and granted greater religious freedoms under the Patent of Tolerance of 1781. He took steps to unify the imperial states through bureaucratic reorganization and standardization of language and law. He also abolished the death penalty and sought to end serfdom. These actions were generally seen as flawed attempts at a grand experiment in enlightened rule although it might be said his intentions were noble.

He stepped on many toes on his path to enlightenment and in the end his sweeping reforms managed only to cause further disunity. Increasingly discontent with successive waves of imperial reforms, some of the states openly rebelled or looked to secede. The Austrian Netherlands rioted after their protests and concerns were all but ignored. Riots turned to revolt and eventually a revolutionary militia was formed to resist imperial attempts to regain control.

Both liberal and conservatives entered into a loose alliance with the church to form a 'committee of national liberation'. At the center of the movement was the conservative lawyer Hendrik Van der Noot who opposed the emperors reforms from day one. Joining him was an unlikely ally, liberal lawyer Jean-François Vonck. Vonck initially approved of the reforms but eventually joined with the opposition over the haphazard way in which the reforms were enacted. The former faction was known as the Statists, the later was known as the Vonckists. Revolutionaries under Van der Noot raised a small force and invaded Brabant defeating Austrian forces at the Battle of Turnhout in October of 1789. Thus began the Brabant Revolution in earnest.

The empire was in turmoil. Joseph was rendered powerless to direct the affairs of state and military and he was labeled a heretic by the Catholic Church for championing religious tolerance. His health was failing, he soon found he had been abandoned by most family and friends and his directives were increasingly ignored. The Empire's central power structure was weakened and at odds, it was ill prepared to immediately and effectively counter the spreading revolutions.

Detail from The Battle of Turnhou from an Engraving by Jan Luyken
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By November of 1789, Austrian troops had withdrawn to their strongholds in Luxembourg and Antwerp, fleeing the advancing revolutionary troops and general anarchy. Van der Noot declared Brabant independent and soon after the other provinces of the Austrian Netherlands followed suit. On the strength of their early successes, the now free states formally unified on January 11, 1790 forming the Verenigde Nederlandse Staten (Dutch) / États-Belgiques-Unis (French) / The United States of Belgium (English).

The Emperor Joseph, broken and virtually powerless, died on February 20, 1790. He left to Leopold II, his brother and successor, an almost completely disrupted state. He asked that his epitaph read: "Here lies Joseph II, who failed in all he undertook." Leopold and his brother were close and shared many of the same views. Like Joseph he was a reformer, a ruler from the school of Enlightened Despotism. Unlike his brother he was more moderate and less rash in his actions.

The future emperors Joseph II (right) and his brother Leopold II (left) by Pompeo Batoni 1769
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Leopold recognized Joseph's fatal flaws and distanced himself from his unpopular brother. Once in power he set to the daunting task of returning order to the empire. He worked to heal relations with other nations that had soured under his brother rule. He repealed many of his brothers reforms and quickly moved to put an end to the general revolt and recapture former imperial holdings in the Southern Netherlands.

Knowing the Austrians would return, Van der Noot and the different factions in the new Belgian state worked to establish a functioning government. They established a governing body known as the Sovereign Congress and sought further legitimacy by gaining recognition of their new state by other nations. World recognition did not come, nor did unity for the fledgling nation. The factions that had joined against a common foe were, in essence, radically different in their politics. Once the common foe was no longer an imminent threat, those factions began to fight amongst themselves. The conservative Statists and progressive Vonckists factions were in constant conflict, bordering on civil war.

Imperial troops marched into the Austrian Netherlands and took the city of Namur on October 24, 1790. Two days later, the province of West Flanders also submitted. Constant fighting between conservatives and progressives, the lack of unity, the lack of direction, and the lack of international confidence in the endeavor proved fatal for the new republic. By December of 1790, Leopold had fully regained the territory and the United States of Belgium was no more.

The United States of Belgium did not last a full year but the Brabant Revolution had long-lasting repercussions. The internal discord between the supporters of Van der Noot and Vonck continued and was, in many ways, the basis of the two political movements that would dominate future Belgian politics. Forty years later the Southern Netherlands achieved independence and created the modern state of Belgium with a National congress. However they also appointed Leopold of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha as the first King of the Belgians, who in turn swore allegiance to the new constitution, and ruled as Leopold I.


The Artistry of the Coin

This coin was just one of several coins designed and engraved for the fledgling republic by the master engraver Theodore Victor van Berckel, some of which were never realized. Born in 1739 to Theodore Everard van Berckel, a master silversmith, young Theodore began quite early learning the craft, training with his father from a very early age. The van Berckel family had long been in the craft of engraving and cutting dies as his grandfather, Theodore Caspar van Berckel, was a well known engraver as well.

A portrait of Theodore Victor van Berckel as a young man painted by his brother Rutger van Berckel
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After a time training with his father he was apprenticed to a family friend, the master engraver Johann Conrad Marmé. His time with Marmé lasted about a year after which Marmé moved to Utrecht to take a job at a provincial mint and Theodore moved back home to work in his fathers shop producing mainly seals until 1760 when he is mentioned as having produced a city hall medal of which he would produce many.

Theodore married Anna Maria Nouhuijis in 1763 and promptly moved to Rotterdam and became a independent die cutter producing many wedding and anniversary medals, more city council medals and various other medals for those who could pay him. With the death of the Graveur Genéréral at the Imperial mint in Brussels, Jacques Roëttiers, Van Berckel applied but was reject. However after years without a replacement, a competition was held and since most of the other candidates dropped out leaving only Berckel who finished the assigned task, he was soon after appointed Graveur Général at the Imperial Mint of the Austrian Netherlands in Brussels and began producing dies for the coinage of the empress Maria Theresa. Once the empress passed away, he made medals for her son and successor Joseph II who visited the Netherlands in 1780. Many of the medals he produced were thrown to the populous upon his arrival.

During the civil strife and the revolution, Berckel continued to go to work at the mint working on dies of Joseph II. However once the Austrians had fled the territory, the new government wasted little time commissioning him for coinage for their new state. Theodore quite quickly designed and put into production new copper and silver coinage. In all he produced 6 different coins for the short lived republic.

Suffering no repercussion for his part in the revolution, he set to work on new dies for the new emperor Leopold II after the fall of the Republic and with the death of that emperor in 1792 he also produced all the dies for his successor Francis II. With the coming of the French forces in 1794 there was a choice to be made, stay in the Netherlands or evacuate with the Austrians. He chose the later.

Designs for the coins of the Republic of Belgium
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After a time of uncertainty, Van Berckel was appointed to the office of chief engraver at the Mint in Vienna however his position there was, unfortunately, largely administrative and all creative control remained in the hands of his predecessor Johann Nepomuk Würth. Van Berckel was embittered with his inability to change his situation and to make matters worse his wife passed away in 1802. Soon after he also fell ill, losing much of his sight from an infection and passed away in 1808.

All coin images are mine, all others are linked. Thanks! ​

 

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Thank you for the interesting summary of the history of the Etats Belges Unis .
I live for many years in Belgium so this is somewhat close to home for me.

This is my example of the X Sols:

 

A stunning example, thanks for posting it..

 

Thanks for another great thread, @Cachecoins ! Beautiful coin!

 

Great coins/ historical writeup!
Here is one of my coins from Austrian Netherlands/ Brabant
AV Double Souverain d'or 1749 Antwerpen Mint "Hand" MM
Empress Maria Theresia 1740-80

 

Great coin! Thanks for posting it.

 

Thanks!
Here is another one from HRE Franz II
AV Souverain d'or 1796-B Brussels Mint
HRE Franz II 1792-1835
Austrian Netherlands

 

Very nice, that is work of Theodore van Berckel.

 

Here is my coin from the same period and place. I was inspired by the one @lordmarcovan used to have.

 

Oh, that is a real beauty. I think those were one of the first two coins of this series to be produced.

 

Just look at the quality of these pieces! All beautiful..

@Cachecoins Excellent work !!

 

Thank you for making this thread. I found it most interesting.
I acquired this Flanders Token a few year ago, my research of it lead me to
Van Berckel as the engraver. Any other information about it would interest me.

 

Here is one of mine when Brabant was part of Burgundy
AV Florin d'or de Bourgogne ND
22mm. 3.39g. .986
Charles the Bold/ Duke of Burgundy 1467-77
Antwerpen Mint "Hand" mm
Charles was the son of Philip the Good and Isabella of Portugal.
He started off on a good footing, Liege had rebelled, so his Father sent him to put down the rebellion.In the town of Dinant, they burnt him in effigy/ Charles then sacked the City, killed every man, women, child as a lesson. After Philips death, Liege again revolted, this time Charles crushed them at Brustem, and ended the revolt. Next on his list was Louis XI aka "The Spider King" of France, who had aided Liege. A Treaty was signed at Conflans with Louis, demanding his loyalty to Charles. In the meantime, Liege again revolted, this time Charles took the City and massacred its populace. In 1471 Louis broke the Treaty and invaded the Somme, capturing some towns. Charles answered by invading France with a huge army sacking Nesle/ devastating the countryside. However he failed to capture Beaulais. Soon after he inaded Lorraine seizing Nancy. Then he turned his army vs the Swiss Confederation which had aided Lorraine. He ended up getting clobbered in three battles by the Swiss. In 1477, he and his entire Army where killed at Nancy while trying to take the City from the Lorrainers and Swiss. He suffered having his head split in two by a halberd, plus many penetrating wounds from lances/ swords. Kinda like the dummy in the series, "Forged in Fire"

 

Simple but elegant. He was not the greatest engraver (although some of his work was truly outstanding) but he was very good and a work horse minting official coinage for 3 emperors, local royalty, official city medals and portrait medals and private and Civic issues.

I love the fact that he went straight from engraving portrait medals and coins for Joseph II, one unfinished example exists, to these issues without skipping a beat and when it was all over he started immediately on coins and medals of Leopold II. A true master without doubt.



Unfinished portrait of Joseph II just before the revolution.



Medal struck for the Academies Des Beaux-arts showing his portrait of the very popular Duke Charles Alexander of Lorraine, brother in of Maria Theresa who ruled in her name in the southern provinces.

 

Stunning coin and interesting historical figure. I have read quite a bit about him and certainly one can say that Charles was was many things... bold is one...

 

Wrong thread.. lol

 

Here are my two coins from the Brabant Revolution Thank you for the great historical background. Not many people know about this revolution.

Petter

 

Importunately it is not, the B stands for the Kremnitz Mint (now Kremnica in Slovakia). Only the coins of this type with the angel head (Mint of Brussels) are made by Van Berckel.

 

Importunately = unfortunately

 

Could you please explain what you mean with "he was not the greatest engraver"? Surely there have been greater engravers in world history, but many consider him the best engraver there has ever been on Belgian territory.