The Blooming Language of Money

Flowers and plants were depicted on coins as far back as ancient Greece. The tradition of depicting floral motifs on coins can be traced through the Middle Ages to modern times. Flowers and plants are also popular motifs on banknotes.

The exhibition The Blooming Language of Money offers an overview of coins and banknotes featuring images of flowers and plants from ancient Greece to the euro, and deciphers the messages contained in these depictions. The exhibition focuses on coins and medals featuring lilies, roses, alpine flowers, palm trees and laurel wreaths as important elements of their design. The coins with floral motifs on display come not only from Europe, but also from America, Asia and Oceania. The exhibition offers a broad view of the fascinating diversity of the world of money. In addition, the show features an area in which the coins and banknotes are grouped thematically – from the construction of national identities, through uniqueness, to independence.

In the exhibition, the coins and banknotes enter into dialogue with works of art and interventions by the artist Ryts Monet, who repeatedly addresses the iconography of money in his works and examines the flower on banknotes and coins and its changeable appropriation and identification.