10 kg Pure Gold Coin by B.C. Artist Up for Auction – Unique and Rare Opportunity

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An upcoming Heffel art auction features works from a who’s who of Canadian painters, including Tom Thomson, Lawren Harris and Emily Carr.

But the showstopper is a coin — Haida artist James Hart’s The Dance Screen (The Scream Too).

It isn’t just any coin, however. It’s a one-of-a-kind artwork commissioned by the Royal Canadian Mint, and is made from 10 kilograms of pure Canadian gold.

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The face value of the coin is $100,000, but the artistic content is worth a lot more. It has a pre-auction estimate of $1.4 million to $1.8 million.

The coin is based on Hart’s monumental cedar carving, The Dance Screen (The Scream Too), which was partly carved at the Vancouver Art Gallery and is now one of the signature works at the Audain Art Museum in Whistler.

The original carving is huge — 4.75 metres (15 ft.) by 3.2 metres (12 ft.). The coin was rejigged from rectangular to round, with Hart working with the Mint’s artists to get it perfect.

“It brings together traditional Haida figures — a Shaman, the Beaver, Raven, Eagle, Frog, Orca and Mother Bear with cubs — whose life deeply depends on the Salmon, represented in human and animal form along the edge,” says the listing in the Heffel catalogue.