A silver-gilt membership medal for the Beggar's Benison Club, Anstruther, Scotland, second half 18th century

Condition: New

Of upright oval form, the obverse with the nude figures of Adam and Eve standing with their hands joined, she clasping her breast, he pointing to a cascading bower, with a lion at his feet, beneath the inscription 'BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY', the reverse with the nude figure of Venus reclining before a tree, Cupid at her side and the nude figure of Adonis with a spear standing before them, his dog seated to the left, all beneath the inscription 'LOSE NO OPPORTUNITY', 4.3cm high including suspension loop.
Footnotes
This finely modelled medal was made for members of 'The Most Ancient and Most Puissant Order of the Beggar's Benison and Merryland', formed in 1732 and founded in 1739 in Anstruther, Scotland. Much of the all-male club's activity revolved around sex and erotica, specifically 'the convivial celebration of male sexuality', with members meeting twice yearly on Candlemas and St. Andrew's Day. Members dined in their green silk sashes and wore these medals, the badges of the Order, at the annual meeting and dinner at their Castle of Dreel headquarters on St. Andrew's Day. As the popularity of the Club increased, the headquarters was moved to Edinburgh. The Club became large and sprawling, with branches established in Edinburgh, Glasgow and St. Petersburg. The 'Beggar's Benison' was drunk as a toast at aristocratic dinners in London in a coded reference to sex. In his 1952 thesis 'The Literary Clubs and Societies of Eighteenth Century Scotland', D D McElory states on p.504 how 'two examples of the Club's publications which I have seen were of such a downright pornographic nature as to make my soul shrink'.

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