Portrait of a Man with a Roman Coin by Hans Memling

Fun painting!


Portrait of a Man with a Roman Coin by Hans Memling
c. 1480
Oil on panel
31 cm × 23.2 cm (12 in × 9.1 in)
Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp

Here's a close-up of the coin:



Anyone care to guess what the reverse type might be?

 

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Not too many with these legends and a left facing bust.



Needless to say, not my coin...

 

that's kool! i like paintings and i like coins.

 

Awesome! I'm now more inclined to visit Antwerp.

 

You should go to Belgium anyway, it is wonderful. Antwerp is a nice town. Also amongst my favourites are Ypres, Bruges and Ghent. In Ghent you can see the altarpiece.

 

Very neat

 

Yes, but in Bruges, you can see Bruges.


Old photos, but fond memories.

 

Lovely photos of a lovely town.

 

Don't forget the peeing baby!

 

But the important question is: where are the best Roman ruins in Belgium?

 

The thing that puzzles me about this coin is the part of the obverse legend circled in yellow below:



As far as I could determine, RIC lists no Nero sestertii with the apparent legend:

NERO CLAVD CAESAR AVG GE PM TRP IMP P P

All similar legends have GER rather than GE. I suspect the artist made a mistake by omitting the R, and attempted to correct it by combining the E with the R.

If you assume that the legend is supposed to be NERO CLAVD CAESAR AVG GER PM TRP IMP P P, then RIC lists a multitude of reverses including Adlocutio, Annona, Arch, Congiarium, Decursio, et al., so it could be any one of a number of reverses.

 

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Several times we have recommended buying the book using this painting as a cover. While I doubt the artist paid all that much attention to the coin legend, I always wondered if it was a Paduan.