In 2007, to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Britannia, the Royal Mint released a very Limited Issue Britannia £25 Twenty Five Pound Gold Proof Coin struck in solid 22 Carat Gold weighing one quarter of an ounce of fine pure Gold and Certified Slabbed and Graded by PCGS as PR69 DCAM.
The portrait remains faithful to her character, giving her a more contemporary air yet still associating her with symbols of Britain.
Christopher Le Brun admits that he found Britannia familiar yet 'profoundly strange and highly emotive' and was pleased that her emblematic nature gave him to 'return to the original notion of Britannia as the personification of Nymph of the Islands'. "I find this very evocative: the figure on the shore of Albion, the wooded island, owing something to the imagery of Spenser and Milton".
He has, therefore, chosen to depict her in a traditional seated pose with a watchful lion at her feet and in the distance a shoreline of cliffs.
The obverse is a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II and has been designed by Ian Rank Broadley.
These legal tender coins have been struck to proof quality using specially prepared dies and highly polished blanks.