Masterpiece of Greek Numismatic Art

Sale: CNG 82, Lot: 572. Estimate $50000.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 16 September 2009.  Sold For $57000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ARKADIA, Arkadian League. Circa 363-362 BC. AR Stater (12.03 g, 11h). Megalopolis mint. Laureate head of Zeus Lykaios left / Young Pan, nude, seated left, head right, on mantle draped over rock, holding lagobolon in his right hand, resting left elbow on rock; AR monogram to left, syrinx and [OΛY] below. Gerin 30 (dies 2’/f – this coin); BCD Peloponnesos 1512; SNG Copenhagen -; BMC 48 = ACGC 319; Boston MFA 1260; Jameson 1276; Gulbenkian 692; Hirsch 1374 (all from same obv. die). Good VF, attractively toned, usual die break on reverse above head. Very rare.

Ex BCD Collection (not in LHS sale); Leu 30 (28 April 1982), lot 141.

One of the great rarities of the late Classical coinage of Greece, and a true masterpiece of Greek numismatic art. There are 33 of these staters known to Gerin, of which 21 are in public museums. Two previous great examples have been sold in recent years. The BCD specimen in LHS 96 (8 May 2006), lot 1512, sold for 220,000 CHF, and the Gillet coin from Kunstfreund, which reappeared as lot 224 in Leu 77 (11 May 2000), sold for 240,000 CHF on an estimate of 80,000.

After the Boeotian victory over the Spartans at Leuktra in 371 BC, an anti-Spartan democratic movement arose in Arkadia in the central Peloponnesos. By 369 BC a confederacy of most of the Arkadian city-states was established, and, under the auspices of the Boeotian leader Epaminondas, a city was founded by combining five pre-existing neighboring villages. This new urban center, Megalopolis, became the capital of the short-lived Arkadian League and, like Messene, a fortified buffer against Spartan power in the Peloponnesos. Though it experienced difficulties with its constituent communities, Megalopolis developed into the largest city in Arkadia and exerted a strong influence in the Peloponnesos.

These staters of the Arkadian league, struck at Megalopolis, were produced at the height of the confederacy's power. The head of Zeus is likely adopted from Leochares' statue of Zeus Brontaios at Olympia, a city the League conquered just prior to the issue of these staters. According to Gerin’s dating, these staters comprised a short series struck from Spring 363 until the Battle of Mantinea in July 362. Thereafter the League dissolved into two factions, respectively centered on Megalopolis and Mantinea, and each entered a steady decline into irrelevancy.