Two Great Seal reverse designs compared, 1786 and 1856 – Historic Reproduction
(Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)
Description
Few images capture their era like this historic image of Two Great Seal reverse designs compared, 1786 and 1856. It is part of the Snapshots of the Past archive, gathered over 25 years of research.
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Two Great Seal reverse designs compared, 1786 and 1856
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This pairing puts two renderings of the Great Seal's reverse side by side, one from 1786 and one from 1856, about seventy years apart. The reverse carries the unfinished pyramid of thirteen steps, the eye within a triangle above it, and the Latin motto *Annuit Coeptis* with *Novus Ordo Seclorum* beneath. Congress settled on that reverse design in 1782, but the seal was later redrawn and re-engraved many times for official use, so each version reflects the taste and technique of its maker. Set together, the two dates show how much the pyramid, the rays, and the lettering could shift while the core symbols stayed the same.
| Original scan | 2,576 × 1,731 px · prints to 9 × 6 in at 300 dpi |
|---|---|
| Reference | great seal 5 |
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