Nomos AG
Auction 25 20 Nov 2022
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BOEOTIA. Thebes. Circa 450-440 BC. Stater (Silver, 21 mm, 12.10 g). Boeotian shield. Rev. ΘEBA Harmonia(?), wearing a long chiton, seated right with her legs crossed and her left foot resting on a footstool, holding a crested Corinthian helmet in her extended left hand, and with her right resting on her hip; all within a shallow incuse square. BCD Boiotia 417 (same dies). Head, Boeotia p. 32, pl. II, 10 = BMC 42 = Traité III 233 (same reverse die). Myron Hoard pl. Α, 31 (same dies). Well-centered. Scattered porosity, otherwise, good very fine.
From a Swiss collection, acquired from Tradart in the 1990s.
Harmonia (= Roman Concordia) was the goddess of harmony and concord; she was the daughter of Zeus and Electra and came from Samothrace. After a romantic elopement she became the wife of the Phoenician Cadmus, founder of Thebes (incidentally he was the brother of Europa). She is shown here gazing at a helmet she holds in left hand, which shows that it is unneeded and peace reigns supreme. Later Cadmus and Harmonia were expelled from Thebes; later still, for various obscure reasons, Cadmus was turned into a serpent. This caused Harmonia great sadness and she began walking around, in the nude, crying constantly; soon her transformed husband slithered around her (this scene is shown by E. de Morgan in an evocative 1877 painting now in the Cannon Hall Museum), and the gods, taking pity on them, turned Harmonia into a serpent too.
From a Swiss collection, acquired from Tradart in the 1990s.
Harmonia (= Roman Concordia) was the goddess of harmony and concord; she was the daughter of Zeus and Electra and came from Samothrace. After a romantic elopement she became the wife of the Phoenician Cadmus, founder of Thebes (incidentally he was the brother of Europa). She is shown here gazing at a helmet she holds in left hand, which shows that it is unneeded and peace reigns supreme. Later Cadmus and Harmonia were expelled from Thebes; later still, for various obscure reasons, Cadmus was turned into a serpent. This caused Harmonia great sadness and she began walking around, in the nude, crying constantly; soon her transformed husband slithered around her (this scene is shown by E. de Morgan in an evocative 1877 painting now in the Cannon Hall Museum), and the gods, taking pity on them, turned Harmonia into a serpent too.