The Paris Master

Sale: CNG 81, Lot: 2571. Estimate $500.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 20 May 2009.  Sold For $850. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ARKADIA, Arkadian League. Circa 460-450 BC. AR Obol (0.93 g, 3h). Tegea mint; reverse die by the Paris Master. Zeus Lykaios seated right, [holding scepter]; eagle flying right from his hand / Head of Kallisto, wearing tainia, facing slightly right within incuse square. Williams, Confederate, period III, 192c (O131/R121 – this coin); BCD Peloponnesos (Tegea) -; SNG Copenhagen 189 (same dies). VF, toned, a little granular. Very rare.

Ex BCD Collection (not in LHS sale); Auctiones 24 (23 June 1994), lot 250; A. Rhousopoulos Collection (J. Hirsch XIII, 15 May 1905), lot 2773.

The engraver of the facing head of Kallisto on the present coin has been identified as the same person who produced the dies for an exceptional coin now residing in the BN. The portraits engraved by this ‘Paris Master’ have been recognized as being among the finest early classical facing heads from the Greek mainland. This particular reverse die was used on both hemidrachms and obols (see following lot).