The New York Sale
Auction 32 8 January 2014
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ANCIENT COINS. GREEK COINS. Siculo-Punic (c.360 B.C.), Silver Tetradrachm, 17.28g, 10h. Head of Queen Dido facing to left, wearing an Asiatic headdress, bound with a palmette-embroidered band. Rev. Lion walking to left, its head facing, behind which is a date-palm in fruit, the Punic inscription (ShAMMChNT) (the people of the camp) in the exergue (Jenkins, 'Coins of Punic Sicily', Part 3, SNR 56, 1977, 271 N (O84/R225) (this coin); Rizzo, pl. LXVI, 7 (these dies); B.V. Head, BM Principal Coins, pl. 26, 41 (these dies); Kraay - Hirmer pl. 72, 207 (these dies); Kraay, ACGC pl. 51, 876 (these dies)).Small flaw on the cheek, extremely fine, of the highest artistic style of the period.Extremely rare, a masterpiece.
This coin published in 'Coins of Punic Sicily', Part 3, G.K. Jenkins, SNR 56 (1977), p.62, 271 N, illustrated on pl. 22.
Ex Numismatic Fine Arts Inc, Auction II, Beverly Hills, 25-26 March 1976, lot 80 (the obverse and reverse are both illustrated on the front and back covers of the catalogue)
Ex Sotheby's, London, 26-27 March 1987, lot 367
Ex Prospero Collection, The New York Sale XXVII, 4 January 2012, lot 198
This coin is struck from superbly engraved dies of the finest artistic style of the period and it is generally considered to be a true masterpiece of fourth century Sicilian numismatic art.It must be assumed that the die engraver was a Greek artist of the highest ability, rather than an invading Carthaginian.The types of the coin are however distinctly Carthaginian.The female head on the obverse of this beautiful coin has traditionally been identified as that of Dido, the founding Queen of Carthage, who had fled her homeland of Tyre after her brother Pygmalion had murdered her husband.The lion, symbolic of the Carthaginians' African origin, appears on the reverse.This coin is incredibly rare, with only five examples recorded by Jenkins (Coins of Punic Sicily, Part 3, SNR 56, 1977, 271, the other four are in national museums in Berlin, London, Paris and Syracuse.Another appeared in the Nelson Bunker Hunt Collection, Sotheby's New York, 19 June 1990, lot 96).
Estimate: US$ 75,000
This coin published in 'Coins of Punic Sicily', Part 3, G.K. Jenkins, SNR 56 (1977), p.62, 271 N, illustrated on pl. 22.
Ex Numismatic Fine Arts Inc, Auction II, Beverly Hills, 25-26 March 1976, lot 80 (the obverse and reverse are both illustrated on the front and back covers of the catalogue)
Ex Sotheby's, London, 26-27 March 1987, lot 367
Ex Prospero Collection, The New York Sale XXVII, 4 January 2012, lot 198
This coin is struck from superbly engraved dies of the finest artistic style of the period and it is generally considered to be a true masterpiece of fourth century Sicilian numismatic art.It must be assumed that the die engraver was a Greek artist of the highest ability, rather than an invading Carthaginian.The types of the coin are however distinctly Carthaginian.The female head on the obverse of this beautiful coin has traditionally been identified as that of Dido, the founding Queen of Carthage, who had fled her homeland of Tyre after her brother Pygmalion had murdered her husband.The lion, symbolic of the Carthaginians' African origin, appears on the reverse.This coin is incredibly rare, with only five examples recorded by Jenkins (Coins of Punic Sicily, Part 3, SNR 56, 1977, 271, the other four are in national museums in Berlin, London, Paris and Syracuse.Another appeared in the Nelson Bunker Hunt Collection, Sotheby's New York, 19 June 1990, lot 96).
Estimate: US$ 75,000