Anti-Semitic Medal – The Old Price Riots at the Covent Garden Theater – London, 1809

An anti-Semitic medal from the period of the Covent Garden (London) theater re-opening, and the riots caused by rising prices at the new theater. [England], 1809.
Obverse: figure of a man with pointed ears (resembling horns) and a beard (the actor and theater director John Philip Kemble as Shylock in the play "Merchant of Venice" by William Shakespeare). Below appear the initials V.P. and the rhyming legends "Av’rice and Titled Lust, Alone we Blame. Yet Blush we Must For ‘Tis a Nations Shame" and "This is the Jew, which Shakespeare Drew".
Reverse: "Hat D’ye / Want? / OP OB / &. D P O" [Old Prices, Open Boxes, and Deference to Public Opinion] surrounded by a wreath and an additional inscription "The Dramas Laws, The Dramas Patrons Give, and he Who Lives To Please, Should Please To Live".
In 1809 a new theater opened in Covent Garden, London, replacing the theater that existed there and had burnt to the ground. The costs of rebuilding the theater led the management to raise the prices of seats which resulted in unrest on the part of the theater audience. The protest against the price rise started on the evening of the premiere and developed into riots which lasted for more than two months and interfered with the ongoing activity of the theater (the riots were named "Old Price Riots").
In an attempt to put an end to the protests, the director of the theater John Philip Kemble organized a group of Jews headed by the Jewish boxer Daniel Mendoza. The involvement of Jews in dispersal of the demonstrators lent an anti-Semitic theme to the conflict which is expressed in this medal (the medal which served the protestors against the price rise, portrays Kemble in an anti-Semitic light as a stereotypic Jew). When the attempt to put an end to the riots failed, the theater management was obliged to answer the public request to lower the prices.
Diameter: 44 mm (medal is framed). Pierced on top for suspension.