Masterpieces of Ancient coinage.

Perhaps another area where we have a very interesting development in coinage occurred at Pergamon during the reign of Philetairos. The first coin produced by this die cutter or more likey by this school was this one Tetradrachm minted at Pergamon 287-282 BC. This coin features the head of the deified Alexander III. THIS IS NOT MY COIN One has to be very impressed with this portrait. First of all portraiture has to be a careful journey between Accuracy and flattery as the individual depicted has to be recognizable. What is particularly noticeable is the flamboyant treatment of this image. The eye is massive the hair long and flying in some disarray barely held in check by his diadem. Having produced one very impressive image we come to coin no 2 AGAIN NOT MY COIN Portrait of Seleukos I Nikator Pergamon 269-263 BC This has to be one of the most powerful portraits ever struck. Where the previous image captured something of the flamboyant magnetism of Alexander this one effectively captures the strength of Seleukos. This strength is magnified by the series of vertical lines created by the forehead to chin the eye and the first crease in the cheek and then the second line in the cheek. Unlike the hair in the image of Alexander in this one the hair is neat and orderly So finally we get to my coin Portrait of Philetairos Pergamon mint 269-263 BC. Westermark Obv III Rv 2 16.99 grms 29 mm Photo by W. Hansen This portrait is equally powerful but for different reasons. The most obvious features about this portrait are the flat featureless planes of the cheek and the neck divided by a very thin jaw line. The features of the face are more or less crowded into one small area thus creating an intensity that is actually quite shocking. This intensity is further magnified by the treatment of the hair which almost bristles. Whereas Alexander is flamboyant and Seleukos is tough Phil looks mean somebody you really do not want to mess with.
What is most noteworthy here is that this school created three very distinct extremely powerful images each capturing something of the essence of the individual they were trying to depict.
Please note I cover some of this in the May 2016 issue of the Planchet

 

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A little different, but a cute potin coin from Gallia Belgica

 

Though maybe not a true masterpiece, I find the engraving on the reverse Hermes really well executed and absolutely gorgeous.

 

It is very hard to compete with some of the masterpieces shown in this thread, especially yours @AncientJoe but a couple of coins from my collection come close. I very much admire the portrait style on both.

The first is an unusual but attractive issue of Lysimachos from Ainos mint.


The second is a Alexander tetradrachm from Memphis (Price 3971) with the rose symbol.

 

Your Clazomenae drachm is a thing of pure beauty. I've perused your collection many times, and if I could have just one coin, that would be my pick.

And what I'd do for a chance to go behind the scenes in the British Museum coin department. Holding the coins you have pictured there would be a dream!

 

I love your Alexander tetradrachm from Memphis. It's a beautiful example of a great type.

 

For anyone interested, here is Berk's list of his 100 Greatest Ancient Cons, from the table of contents to the book I mentioned -- from the Eid Mar to a coin of Michael V Kalapates issued in 1042 AD. I would guess that in my time here, I've seen the collective membership post well over half of them. (The photos in the book are wonderful, by the way.)



I realize in looking at the list again that I actually own a fourth from the 100: an example of Berk's No. 50, the Tiberius "Tribute Penny." Obviously, fame must have played a role in his choices for "greatness," in addition to artistic merit.

 

I don't have anything I'd consider a 'masterpiece', but do have several coins I'd describe as 'fine style'. These photos are from the dealers by the way. Most don't do them true justice. I've also shown most of these coins before.

My favourite Archaic coin is a drachm from Knidos. A very charming portrait of Aphrodite.



This is a tetradrachm from Selinus. Not the greatest dies in the series, but noteworthy nonetheless.



My favourite facing portrait in my collection. A drachm from Amphipolis.



My stater from Terina. This is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful coin designs in my collection. This photo does do it justice, thanks to AncientJoe.



I like the coins from the Chalkidian League, and they are almost always of great style, with some being truly exceptional. My example is a nice earlier one.



I'll finish with this coin of Ptolemy I, with a portrait of the deified Alexander. It's the only coin I've ever bid on at auction with a desire that I had to have it, hence paid through the nose for it. But it is certainly a masterful portrait.

 

I think “Masterpiece” as used here mainly refers to “Artistic design and craftsmanship of outstanding execution and finish”. In my case, the most important attributes of ancient coins in my collection are historical association, well centered strike on a large flan, clearly readable, well executed lettering and depictions. To each his own - this indeed is a great hobby!

 

A masterpiece is a work that is judged outside its time period. It is just considered a work that is best in its time period.
We are missing a lot of centuries and alot of coins.
I sell art for a living , art of the 12th century does not compete with art of the 7th century. Each time period has its best, that
is what makes it a masterpiece..

 

I agree with BenSi. Every historical period had its own unique coinage. Today in 2021, looking backwards in time, I would pick 1600-1750 as the era of master engravers who really knew their stuff. Esp. the ones employed by the Holy Roman Empire/ Swiss Kantons. The upcoming March/ Heritage Paramount event shows this, coins are to die for.

 

I love it! I collect Turkoman bronze and can attest that the OP Nasir al-Din Mahmud coin is outstanding. Yes, it cost more but, after you have a substantial number of coins and have decided what you like, high quality may be "worth every penny."

I ask if a coin was a "masterpiece" when it was minted it is still one after enduring substantial wear? Or, maybe a test cut? I'll show one below.

I like ancient coins and have often decided the premium for "superb" is not worth it. But that is a personal decision and I have coin-friends on both sides of that issue. It is necessary for the hobby that we don't all want the same coins as each other!

I have the "Prospero" catalog (The New York Sale, XXVII, Jan. 4, 2012) and it has some splendid $10,000+ examples of types I have in lesser condition for less than 1/20th the price. Many Prospero coins were bid up too high by a bidder who didn't pay up (and provoked quite a lawsuit), but, like the Berk book mentioned by @DonnaML , Prospero has masterpieces well worth enjoying.



If it weren't for the test cut this coin would equal Prospero's $17,000 (+ 15%) example.

Cilicia. Tarsos. Time of Pharnabozos, 386-383 BC.
23-20 mm. 10.59 grams.
Head of Young Hercules 3/4 right in lion's skin headdress.
Male (Ares?) head left in crested helmet.
Sear Greek 5642. SNF France 2: 240. ANSMN 31 (1986) plate 2.25. "Only seven known" (to the author, Maysay, in 1986).
ex CNG 41 (1997) lot 638 at $300 + 10%. It seems like test cuts can lower a coin's value a great deal. For me, a coin can still be a "masterpiece" even if the condition is not superb.

 

I am no art expert, but this is my "masterpiece."

Lysimachos; 305-281 BC. AR Tetradrachm (17.17 gm, 31mm, 12h). Abdera/Abydos mint. Struck 297/6-282/1 BC. Obv: Diademed head of the deified Alexander III of magnificent style and detail, wearing the horn of Ammon. Rev: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ to r., ΛΥΣΙΜΑΧΟΥ to l. Athena Nikephoros seated left, leaning on shield, upon which is a lion's head, transverse spear resting on her right side. She holds a figure of Nike, which crowns the name of Lysimachos with a wreath of victory. Head of griffin facing left to outer left field, monogram to inner left. Thompson 70; Müller 126.

 

Hi @Finn235,

It is a ‘delta’ coin. Probably not an engraver’s initial. Per Lorber, it probably denotes coins of a slightly higher weight standard.

- Broucheion

 

I wholeheartedly agree. You cannot compare art from different time periods.

My only exception is that in my opinion intricate and detailed metalwork peaked in 19th century Japan, especially among the Tsuba artists (makers of sword-guards). I have had the luck to hold in my hands some of the finest examples, but unfortunately the ones I own are mediocre. The following video is captivating and does an excellent job in demonstrating the process of making a Japanese sword-guard, even with modern tools used.

 

I was a bit surprised that you had no match to dies published in Gallatin. I would kindly propose that you ask NGC of their opinion on your coin.

 

One of my favorite coins. Masterpiece, I don't know, but a very attractive Larissa drachm with CircCam toning.



Another of my favorite coins, a Siculo-Punic tetradrachm from Entella:



John

 

Great thread, with spectacular coins.

How about a whole bunch of 19th century coin-art prose? "...the Mercury of Aenus is a very stupid-looking fellow, in a cap like a bowl, with a knob on the top of it."

Last night I was leafing through a collection of critic John Ruskin's works and came across his lecture on a coin of Camarina. This is a coin I do not have, but here is one from a Coin World article on Hercules portraits - I am assuming, but not sure, this is the one Ruskin is talking about:

https://www.coinworld.com/news/prec...heracles-on-ancient-coins-ancients-today.html

Here are Ruskin's remarks (link to the whole thing below) - please note I do not much agree with Ruskin, he is presented here for historical/comical possibilities only:

The Queen of the Air - "The Hercules of Camarina"
ADDRESS TO THE STUDENTS OF THE ART SCHOOL OF SOUTH LAMBERT, MARCH 15, 1869.

167. Fix that in your heads also, therefore, that Greek faces are not particularly beautiful. Of that much nonsense against which you are to keep your ears shut, that which is talked to you of the Greek ideal of beauty is the absolutest. There is not a single instance of a very beautiful head left by the highest school of Greek art. On coins, there is even no approximately beautiful one. The Juno of Argos is a virago; the Athena of Athens grotesque, the Athena of Corinth is insipid; and of Thurium, sensual. The Siren Ligeia, and fountain of Arethusa, on the coins of Terina and Syracuse, are prettier, but totally without expression, and chiefly set off by their well-curled hair. You might have expected something subtle in Mercuries; but the Mercury of Aenus is a very stupid-looking fellow, in a cap like a bowl, with a knob on the top of it. The Bacchus of Thasos is a drayman with his hair pomatum'd. The Jupiter of Syracurse is, however, calm and refined; and the Apollo of Clazomenae would have been impressive, if he had not come down to us, much flattened by friction. But on the whole, the merit of Greek coins does not primarily depend on beauty of features, nor even, in the period of highest art, that of the statues. You make take the Venus of Melos as a standard of beauty of the central Greek type. She has tranquil, regular, and lofty features; but could not hold her own for a moment against the beauty of a simple English girl...

170. But, secondly, Greek art is always exemplary in disposition of masses, which is a thing that in modern days students rarely look for, artists not enough, and the public never. But, whatever else Greek work may fail of, you may always be sure its masses are well placed, and their placing has been the object of the most subtle care. Look, for instance, at the inscription in front of this Hercules of the name of the town-- Camarina. You can't read it, even though you may know Greek, without some pains; for the sculptor knew well enough that it mattered very little whether you read it or not, for the Camarina Hercules could tell his own story; but what did above all things matter was, that no K or A or M should come in a wrong place with respect to the outline of the head, and divert the eye from it, or spoil any of its lines. So the whole inscription is thrown into a sweeping curve of gradually diminishing size, continuing from the lion's paws, round the neck, up to the forehead, and answering a decorative purpose as completely as the curls of the mane opposite. Of these, again, you cannot change or displace one without mischief; they are almost as even in reticulation as a piece of basket-work; but each has a different form and a due relation to the rest, and if you set to work to draw that mane rightly, you will find that, whatever time you give to it, you can't get the tresses quite into their places, and that every tress out of its place does an injury. If you want to test your powers of accurate drawing, you may make that lion's mane your pons asinorum, I have never yet met with a student who didn't make an ass in a lion's skin of himself when he tried it.

171. Granted, however, that these tresses may be finely placed, still they are not like a lion's mane. So we come back to the question,--if the face is to be like a man's face, why is not the lion's mane to be like a lion's mane? Well, because it can't be like a lion's mane without too much trouble,--and inconvenience after that, and poor success, after all. Too much trouble, in cutting the die into fine fringes and jags; inconvenience after that,--because, though you can easily stamp cheeks and foreheads smooth at a blow, you can't stamp projecting tresses fine at a blow, whatever pains you take with your die.

So your Greek uses his common sense, wastes no time, uses no skill, and says to you, "Here is beautifully set tresses, which I have carefully designed and easily stamped. Enjoy them, and if you cannot understand that they mean lion's mane, heaven mend your wits."

http://fullonlinebook.com/nonfictions/the-queen-of-the-air-the-hercules-of-camarina/kite.html

 

Personally, I either like things or I do not. I may not LIKE a design, or art, but I can APPRECIATE the work involved to create it. However, I still may not LIKE it.

I agree with folks commenting about art / masterpieces from different time frames, etc. My eye is probably much different from others. I personally find various things being much more appealing to me, that others will overlook. There are many things called masterpieces that I could care less about. But, that is me.

I generally like simplicity in design, brevity, clarity.

Here are a few of mine that I "like".


Carthage - Sicily AR Litra 4th C BCE 9.5mm 0.65g Palm Tree Horse Head SNG Cop 74 EE Clain-Safanelli RARE



RR 265-242 BCE AR Heavy Denarius - Didrachm Roma-Victory Crawford 22-1 Sear 25 Eucharius Rare



RR 234-231 BCE AR Heavy Denarius - Didrachm Apollo-Horse prancing Crawford 26-1 Sear 28



Carthage Zeugitana 310-270 BCE EL Dekadrachm-Stater 18.5mm 7.27g Tanit Horse 3 pellets in ex MAA 12 SNG COP 136

 

I find myself in almost complete agreement with this observation about Roman coins. I appreciate the artistry of many of the portraits, as well as their historical significance, but as Ancient Joe's post illustrates, as pure works of art, most examples will be Greek.

However, I will call attention to the artistry on the reverse of this Claudius sestertius, where the sheerness of Spes/Augusta's skirt is particularly well done:



Finally, I think Ancient Joe was a bit remiss in not including his Kyrene Stater, the illustration of which I have stolen from his website to illustrate the amazing artistry of a quadriga viewed from the front: