A. G. Heaton

Augustus Goodyear Heaton (1844-1931) was an American artist and leading numismatist. He is best known among coin collectors for writing "A Treatise on Coinage of the United States Branch Mints," which introduced numismatists to mint marks.

Biography

Art

Augustus Heaton was born either in Philadelphia as recorded by art historians Peter Falk and John Mahe or in Perry, Oklahoma as stated by family members. Heaton lived in various locations: New York City in the late 1870s; Paris, France in the early 1880s; Philadelphia (1884); Washington, D.C. (1885); and then West Palm Beach, Florida. In 1890, 1892 and 1930, he was in New Orleans where he gave art lectures and painted portraits of numerous prominent citizens including Varina Davis, who was Queen of Comus for Mardi Gras in 1892.

Heaton was a student at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts with Peter F. Rothermel, and was the first American student at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris with Alexandre Cabenel and Leon Bonnat. Heaton was also a teacher in Philadelphia at the Art Students League of New York.

Most of Heaton's paintings are portraits. He also painted western scenes from his time in Oklahoma. His most famous painting, however, and the one of which he was most proud, was "The Recall of Columbus," painted in 1882 and copyrighted in 1891 as the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' landing approached. It was begun in his Paris studio and finished in Rome in the studio of American sculptor Chauncey Ives. The painting was sent to the U.S. Capitol in 1884 for “examination” by the Joint Committee on the Library and purchased later that year for $3,000. The painting was exhibited at the Columbian Historical Exposition in Madrid in 1892, and the following year it was displayed at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. It soon became widely known when it was reproduced as one of the Columbian Issue, 16 commemorative stamps issued in 1893 to coincide with the delayed opening of the Chicago exposition. Today, the painting is owned by the United States Senate.

Numismatics

A. G. Heaton was the third president of the American Numismatic Association, governing from 1894 to 1899. In 1893, he published his famous "Treatise on Coinage of the United States Branch Mints," which revolutionized numismatics. Until its publication, collectors generally only collected by date. Heaton's Treatise, commonly referred to as just "Mint Marks," showed that the coinage of the branch mints was often significantly more scarce and hence worth far more. For example, the coinage of the Carson City Mint is generally far scarcer than that of the main mint in Philadelphia, with mintages fractions of those elsewhere. Heaton was also a frequent contributor to "The Numismatist".

Publications and Articles

* 1893 - "A Treatise on Coinage of the United States Branch Mints"
* 1895 - "A Tour Among the Coin Dealers", appeared in "The Numismatist"

External links

* [http://www.askart.com/askart/h/augustus_goodyear_heaton/augustus_goodyear_heaton.aspx AskArt file on A. G. Heaton]
* [http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/art/artifact/Painting_33_00007.htm United States Senate Collection listing for the Recall of Columbus]
* [http://www.pcgs.com/articles/article2877.chtml A Tour Among the Coin Dealers, with an introduction by Q. David Bowers]