With Saint Nicholas Day in a few days and Christmas less than a month away, I thought it mightbe a good time to share a Sunday School medal that depicts Santa Claus with an excited child,or maybe not - you decide!

Early this year I acquired from a good friend this medal from the St. John's Protestant EpiscopalSunday School in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania. It was intended to be presented at Christmas,although this example is unawarded. It is struck in white metal, 38mm in diameter. Althoughthe medal is unsigned and undated, it can be attributed to William H. Key, circa 1875-1877. Thisis based on several other dated award medals using this same reverse die paired with obversedies that are signed by or die-linked to dies signed by Key. Indeed, it belongs to a group ofseveral dozen Sunday School award medal dies by Key from that period, many of which are alsoused in combination with dies of various So-Called Dollars from that U.S. Centennial era.

OK, a nice Santa Claus medal by Key from the mid-1870s, something to add to my very long listof medals to research further at some point. But then, a couple of months later, my wife and Iwere returning home from a long weekend away and decided to stop in Hartford at theWadsworth Atheneum, a wonderful museum if you've never been - highly recommended.

And what to my wondering eyes did appear, high up on the wall of the Morgan Great Hall, butthis large painting, the source of the image on the Santa Claus medal! Rushing over to theassociated museum placard below, I expected to read something about Santa Claus, and maybeeven the Key Sunday School medal.

But no, the painting is entitled "Samuel Relating to Eli the Judgments of God Upon Eli's House,"by John Singleton Copley, painted in 1780 and acquired by the museum in 1941 through the EllaGallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund. It depicts the scene from 1 Samuel3:18 where the young prophet Samuel reveals his vision from God to Eli, the high priest ofIsrael, of the severity of God's judgement on Eli's family because of the wickedness of his sons.

Key could have taken the image directly from the painting, or perhaps more likely from one ofseveral engravings of it published in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. These include faithfulmezzotints by Valentine Green (London, 1782) and James Daniell (London, 1797), and asomewhat wonky engraving by Henry Moses (London, 1829) published for the Society forPromoting Christian Knowledge.

So, Santa Claus or Eli with Samuel, or maybe both? Personally, given the Christmas connectionmentioned on the medal and the fact that by the 1870s Santa Claus and Christmas celebrationswere becoming popular in America, it seems possible that Key intended the image to representSanta Claus with a child, and found that this animated Copley painting (or an engraving of it)served as a wonderful model.

I'm not sure if we'll ever know, so you decide!