3-056-966 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Royal seal of Charles II, 1662. Design for a great seal for the king, who is shown in a heroic pose astride a galloping horse, and dressed as a Roman emperor wearing a laurel wreath. The famous medallist and seal engraver Thomas Simon had produced coins and seals for Cromwell. After the Restoration, he was supplanted by a royalist, but petitioned Charles II for work. Charles was impressed, and Simon was eventually reinstated as the chief designer of coins and seals. This example is from a warrant authorising the making of the seal.