“It’s very heavy so every time we move it's like a whole operation,” said former delegate Candi Mundon King showing off the massive state seal press built for the Virginia legislature back in 1873. Now the Secretary of the Commonwealth under Governor Abigail Spanberger, among Mundon King’s responsibilities is keeper of the great seal of the Commonwealth and the seal press.
And while America turns 250 this Fourth of July, the great seal of Virginia was first authorized the day after, July 5th, 1776.
The seal, for the uninitiated, has two sides. The front - or obverse- is what most folks are familiar with. It’s on the Virginia flag and shows Virtus, or Virtue, the Roman deity of bravery and military strength holding a sword in her left arm, and in her right hand, a spear. Under her bare foot - and the tip of that spear - lies a fallen king just above the words "Sic Semper Tyrannis," or, "Thus always to tyrants!"
On the backside, or reverse, stand three, barefooted Roman goddesses Libertas, Ceres and Aeternitas, standing for liberty, agriculture and eternity.
While the message is powerful, the imagery, and Virtue’s exposed bosom, is so controversial it was banned by a Texas school district in 2025. But Mundon King pushed back on such thinking.
“It’s a piece of art and you look at art throughout history and there are exposed body parts.”
Dennis Clark is the Librarian of the Commonwealth through the Library of Virginia. He said the appearance of women, who did not have the right to vote or hold office when the seal was created, was more about, "mythology, they had supernatural strength,"
"And the exposed breast is to show it is a woman," he said, before joking about the political ramifications it held as well: "if there's anything that shows the House of Burgesses all the way up to the General Assembly wanted a weak executive, it's the seal."
The colonial seal of Virginia featured, unsurprisingly, an image of King George. And after declaring independence Virginians symbolically killed that king and put him supine on our flag. Now, in 2026, Secretary Mundon King said she’s still inspired by the seal 250 years later.
“Men who had problematic pasts, whether it was being enslavers or oppressing women, they probably unknowingly sent a moment of inspiration that we now get to see be made real," she said, referring to Spanberger's rise to the Governor's mansion. "Which is a woman at the top leadership in our Commonwealth.”
