November 30, 2017 – The American Numismatic Society (ANS) will honor the Rosen Family with the Trustees’ Award at the Annual Gala Dinner at the Harvard Club in New York City on Thursday, January 11, 2018.
The Rosen Family have been generous supporters of the ANS for over four decades and have greatly enhanced the ANS collections with many important donations to its numismatic cabinet.
The family’s major collector, Mr. Jonathan Rosen, received his first coin from his parents on his 10th birthday – a Roman silver denarius of Claudius and Nero. He has collected regularly ever since, moving from Roman coins to British Commonwealth pieces while studying law in England, and then, after graduating law school in 1970, to early electrum coins. His electrum collection was exhibited at the Getty and Brooklyn museums in the 1980s, accompanied by the catalog Jonathan wrote for the exhibition with Arthur Houghton. Currently he is focused on Cyzicus electrum staters and Hadrian’s Travel Series.
Although collecting coins is a lifelong passion, it is not his only one. Jonathan is also an avid collector of ancient art – he is one of the world’s most important private collectors of Mesopotamian cylinder seals – and many of his pieces are on public display. Jonathan’s wife, Jeannette, has steadfastly encouraged his interests over their many years of marriage, and together they support many important cultural institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Israel Museum, Bible Lands Museum, and the Morgan Library and Museum, where they have endowed a chair, the Jeannette and Jonathan P. Rosen Curatorship in the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Seals and Tablets. They also are major benefactors to such educational institutions as Amherst College, where they help to fund the Chair of American Studies for Henry Steele Commager, and Emory, Yale, Cornell, and Columbia universities, along with the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University.
Adam Rosen is following in his father’s footsteps, both as a collector and a philanthropist. He is a serious collector of ancient art and coinage, sharing his father’s passion for Greek coins and especially electrum.
In acknowledgment of their exemplary devotion and generosity, the Board of Trustees of the American Numismatic Society is delighted to bestow upon the Rosen Family the Society’s singular honor for 2018.
Past recipients of the Trustees’ Award include such notable numismatists and donors as Ms. Shelby White and Mr. Leon Levy, Mr. Jamie Stewart, Mr. Kenneth L. Edlow, Mr. George Kolbe, Mr. Q. David Bowers, Mr. Chester L. Krause, Mr. Donald G. Partrick, Mr. Harvey Stack, Mr. Victor England, Jr., Mr. Ira Goldberg, Mr. Larry Goldberg, Mr. Harlan J. Berk, Mr. Roger S. Siboni, Mrs. Marian Scheuer Sofaer and the Honorable Abraham D. Sofaer, Mrs. Elizabeth Forbes Hazard Scott and Mr. Stanley DeForest Scott, and Mr. and Mrs. John W. Adams, Anthony J. Terranova, and the Eric P. Newman Numismatic Education Society and the Newman Numismatic Portal.
Every year the American Numismatic Society raises critical revenue through Gala ticket sales, program advertisements, sponsorships, contributions, and the proceeds from a live auction. These funds are used to further the Society’s mission of supporting research and education in numismatics.
For information on purchasing tickets or program advertisements, please contact Emma Pratte at 212-571-4470, ext. 117; via e-mail; or visit the ANS website.