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November Auction 2015 13 November 2015
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SICILY, SILVER DRACHM OF KATANE, ca. 410-405 BC, 4.281g, 6h. Rizzo pl. 14, 4 (same dies). Extremely rare. Old cabinet tone. Two enchanting portraits struck in high relief, works of a very skilled master engraver. Exceptional for issue and, possibly, the finest known. Good extremely fine
This coin bears one of the most extraordinary facing heads in all Greek coinage, and is an absolute masterpiece by a now unknown engraver. Silenos traditionally appeared on small denominations at Katane but normally in profile but showing him facing must have been due to the influence of the facing heads of Herakleidas, Choirion, Kimon... The head on the reverse is not Apollo, as has often been suggested, but a newly youthful Amenanos. This iconographic change can be laid to the increasingly humanistic and baroque tendencies of the classical art of the late 5th century.
This coin bears one of the most extraordinary facing heads in all Greek coinage, and is an absolute masterpiece by a now unknown engraver. Silenos traditionally appeared on small denominations at Katane but normally in profile but showing him facing must have been due to the influence of the facing heads of Herakleidas, Choirion, Kimon... The head on the reverse is not Apollo, as has often been suggested, but a newly youthful Amenanos. This iconographic change can be laid to the increasingly humanistic and baroque tendencies of the classical art of the late 5th century.