Frontal Portrait of Kallisto – The Only Example in Private Hands

Sale: CNG 81, Lot: 2570. Estimate $500.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 20 May 2009.  Sold For $600. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ARKADIA, Arkadian League. Circa 460-450 BC. AR Hemidrachm (2.81 g, 11h). Tegea mint. Zeus Lykaios seated left, [holding scepter]; [eagle flying left from his hand] / Head of Kallisto facing, hair bun to right; [all within incuse square]. Williams, Confederate, period III, 176 (O121/R110); BCD Peloponnesos (Tegea) -; BMC 1 (same dies); de Luynes 2311 (same dies). Fine, toned, slight granularity, obverse off center. Extremely rare.

Ex BCD Collection (not in LHS sale).

This period of the League coinage at Tegea is remarkable in its unusual facing portraits of Kallisto, unparalleled at the other cities. Some of the Tegean coins also depict Zeus from different perspectives, such as from the back (see BCD Peloponnesos 1713). This particular coin is extraordinary in that Kallisto is looking directly forward, rather than slightly to the left or right, and is known from a single reverse die (R110). Only four examples are recorded in Williams as having been struck from this die, all in museums (London, Paris, Berlin, and Modena).