Roma Numismatics Ltd
Auction XVI 26 Sep 2018
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Etruria, Populonia AR Drachm. Late 4th - 3rd century BC. Hare leaping right / Blank. EC I, 116.3-6 (O2); HN Italy 223; SNG ANS 22. 3.96g, 16mm.
Good Very Fine. Extremely Rare, one of only five known examples from this die.
From the collection of a Swiss Etruscologist, and outside of Italy prior to December 1992.
The hare was a popular motif in Etruscan art, particularly on surviving pottery and bronze ware. A bronze statuette sold by Royal Athena Galleries (New York) portrays a standing figure of Turms holding a sacrificial hare and the remains of a knife. The possibility therefore of the hare shown here representing a sacrificial animal or a symbolic attribute of swift-footed Turms (perhaps as the lion-skin diobol [see following lot] relates to Hercle?) should not be ignored, though the depiction of other animals including dolphins and octopodes (see following lots) also cannot yet be satisfactorily explained.
Good Very Fine. Extremely Rare, one of only five known examples from this die.
From the collection of a Swiss Etruscologist, and outside of Italy prior to December 1992.
The hare was a popular motif in Etruscan art, particularly on surviving pottery and bronze ware. A bronze statuette sold by Royal Athena Galleries (New York) portrays a standing figure of Turms holding a sacrificial hare and the remains of a knife. The possibility therefore of the hare shown here representing a sacrificial animal or a symbolic attribute of swift-footed Turms (perhaps as the lion-skin diobol [see following lot] relates to Hercle?) should not be ignored, though the depiction of other animals including dolphins and octopodes (see following lots) also cannot yet be satisfactorily explained.