Virginia State Coat of Arms

The coat of arms is the central design on the obverse, or front side, of the Great Seal of Virginia. The Great Seal has two sides: the front shows Virtus and the fallen tyrant; the back shows three Roman goddesses. The coat of arms is the front image that appears on the state flag and most official documents.

The design has looked essentially the same since July 5, 1776. It was standardized in 1950 when the General Assembly resolved decades of inconsistencies that had accumulated across different printings, engravings, and manufacturers.

On July 1, 1776, the Virginia Convention appointed a committee of four to design a seal for the Commonwealth: Richard Henry Lee, George Mason, George Wythe, and Robert Carter Nicholas Sr. Four days later, the committee presented a design. The Convention voted on it and approved it that same day, July 5, 1776.

The design is generally believed to be principally the work of George Wythe, a lawyer, classical scholar, and signer of the Declaration of Independence. Wythe and the committee drew on their knowledge of Roman mythology and the political ideals of ancient republics to create a design that rejected all European royal symbolism.

The original seal was ordered from Paris. On October 4, 1779, the General Assembly passed an act to procure a new seal based on the 1776 design. The same act changed the motto on the reverse side from the original Latin phrase to Perseverando, meaning 'by persevering.'

By the mid-1800s, different artists, engravers, and manufacturers had produced varying versions of the seal without a single authoritative rendering to follow. On February 1, 1950, the General Assembly formally standardized the design, establishing precise specifications for the figures' proportions, dress, and colors.

The coat of arms places all its action in a single scene: a Roman goddess standing over a defeated man. The word 'Virginia' appears above, and the motto appears below.

The coat of arms was designed in 1776 by men who had just declared independence and expected war with Britain. They chose to show the war's outcome rather than its beginning: Virtus stands over the tyrant, not fighting him. The past tense is the message.

The broken chain, fallen crown, and scourge on the defeated figure are not abstract warnings but a specific indictment: this is what colonial rule looked like, and the Revolution had ended it. The motto names the outcome: tyrants fall, always.

The design of the coat of arms has not changed since 1776. What changed over time was how different engravers and printers interpreted the design, since no single standardized rendering existed for most of the seal's history.

The only formal design change after 1776 came in 1779, when the General Assembly changed the motto on the reverse side of the Great Seal from the original Latin phrase to Perseverando. The obverse, which forms the coat of arms, was not altered. The 1950 standardization did not change the design but fixed how it was drawn.