Stack's Bowers & Ponterio
January 2018 NYINC Auction 11-13 Jan 2018
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GERMANY. Cabalistic Sun Talisman Struck in Gold, ND (ca. 17th or 18th Century).
27 mm; 5.1 gms. Unsigned, but in the style of the Nuremberg Guild Masters. Obverse: The enthroned sun-god facing, a scepter in his right hand and a radiant sun-face above. His name SO / LIS divided by the throne. At his feet sits a lion, the astrological mansion of the sun. The reverse depicts the Solar magic square, in which all the horizontal and vertical columns add up to 111, and the sum of all lines - vertical or horizontal - combine to make 666. Magic squares have long been thought to have powers of protection for those who carry them. Each magic square (this being the Tabula Solis, the 36-celled square) is ascribed, in the study of astrology, to one of the bodies of our solar system. Each of these heavenly bodies supposedly affects certain aspects of life. The sun is said to control the aspects related to health, wealth, and power. Those who possessed a sun amulet believed they would receive special aid and protection in those areas. The sun amulets were usually produced in gold as the rules of magic and alchemy decreed that since gold was regarded as the metal sacred to the sun, the sun amulets should only be produced in gold. VERY RARE and apparently unpublished. Minor scratches. EXTREMELY FINE.
Ex: Stack's Auction of the Vermeule, Ward and Mexico Maxico Collections, sold January 2010, lot# 481.
Estimate: $5000.00- $7000.00
27 mm; 5.1 gms. Unsigned, but in the style of the Nuremberg Guild Masters. Obverse: The enthroned sun-god facing, a scepter in his right hand and a radiant sun-face above. His name SO / LIS divided by the throne. At his feet sits a lion, the astrological mansion of the sun. The reverse depicts the Solar magic square, in which all the horizontal and vertical columns add up to 111, and the sum of all lines - vertical or horizontal - combine to make 666. Magic squares have long been thought to have powers of protection for those who carry them. Each magic square (this being the Tabula Solis, the 36-celled square) is ascribed, in the study of astrology, to one of the bodies of our solar system. Each of these heavenly bodies supposedly affects certain aspects of life. The sun is said to control the aspects related to health, wealth, and power. Those who possessed a sun amulet believed they would receive special aid and protection in those areas. The sun amulets were usually produced in gold as the rules of magic and alchemy decreed that since gold was regarded as the metal sacred to the sun, the sun amulets should only be produced in gold. VERY RARE and apparently unpublished. Minor scratches. EXTREMELY FINE.
Ex: Stack's Auction of the Vermeule, Ward and Mexico Maxico Collections, sold January 2010, lot# 481.
Estimate: $5000.00- $7000.00