John Heaton (Active 1730-1745)

Biography:

John Heaton was an artist who was active in the United Kingdom between 1730 and 1745. He is known for his work as a medallist, designing medals, plaquettes, badges, coins and similar small works in relief in metal. He was also a sculptor of larger works. Art medals are a well-known and highly collected form of small bronze sculpture, most often in bronze, and are considered a form of exonumia. Medallists very often also design, or produce the dies for coins as well. In modern times medallists are mostly primarily sculptors of larger works, but in the past the number of medals and coins produced were sufficient to allow specialists who spent most of their career producing them. Medallists are also often confusingly referred to as 'engravers' in reference works, referring to the 'engraving' of dies, although this is often not the technique used; however many also worked in engraving the technique in printmaking. Art medals have been produced since the late Renaissance period, and, after some classical precedents and Late Medieval revivals, the form was essentially invented by Pisanello, who is credited with the first portrait medal, which has remained a very popular type. He cast them like bronze sculptures, rather than minting them like coins.