GERALD LAING

The Parsifal Medal

Catalogue raisonné no. 579

Artist's CR 539

October, 1993

Cast in bronze by The Royal Mint

Edition of 25

5 inches / 0 cm , diameter

Literature:
• 'Gerald Laing', The Medal, No.24
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Selected Citations and Comments

Created for the British Art Medal Society.

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The medal is inspired by Paul Verlaine’s poem ‘Parsifal’: the last line - ‘Et O ces voix d’enfants chantant dans la coupole’ is very familiar because T. S. Eliot quotes it in ‘The Waste Land’. It appears on the reverse of the medallion. The previous one and a half lines appear on the obverse. I have shown the grail as a winged hour-glass, which I think is a poetic idea for such an elusive image.

Gerald Laing (quoted in), The Medal, no.24, 1994, p.143