Masterpiece of Late Archaic Art

Sale: Triton XI, Lot: 91. Estimate $50000.  Closing Date: Monday, 7 January 2008.  Sold For $150000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

THRACE, Maroneia(?). Circa 500-480 BC. EL Stater (14.00 g). Milesian standard. Forepart of ram right, legs in running attitude, terminating behind shoulder in narrow vertical belt decorated with pellets between two vertical lines / Rectangular incuse punch. Triton VI, lot 202 (same obv. die), otherwise unpublished. EF. The second, and finest, known. An elegant masterpiece of exuberant late archaic art.

The general treatment and pelleted termination belt of the ram of the above coin are very similar to the bull forepart of M.J. Price, “A Field in Western Thrace,” CH II, fig 1, 3 (see lot 102 below). The present coin is attributable to Maroneia on the grounds of a similar ram’s head on the reverse incuse of the city’s early fourth century drachms (cf. Schöniert-Geiss 39-70) and also on locally found silver fractions depicting on the obverse a ram’s head. Within the reverse incuse of these fractions is a kantharos similar to that placed above the mid fourth century tetradrachms of Maroneia (cf. Schöniert-Geiss 85-105).