Sale: Nomos 2, Lot: 140. Estimate CHF1000.  Closing Date: Monday, 17 May 2010.  Sold For CHF950. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

KINGS of PARTHIA. Mithradates II. 121-91 BC. Drachm (Silver, 4.21 g 12), Ecbatana, circa 119-109. Diademed bust of Mithradates II to left, wearing torque and elaborate robes. Rev. ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ / ΜΕΓΑΛΟΥ / ΑΡΣΑΚΟΥ / ΕΠΙΦΑΝΟΥΣ Arsakes I seated right on low throne, holding bow. Sellwood 26.1. Shore 77. A wonderful piece, perfectly preserved and beautifully toned. Good extremely fine.

From the Bellaria Collection, Triton VII, 12 January 2004, 422 and ex Sternberg 27, 7 November 1994, 23.

The Parthians consciously harked back to earlier portrait styles, both of the Persian Great Kings and of the Assyrian and Babylonian rulers of Mesopotamia. This is a classic example of the kind of archaistic portrait they liked: it could have stepped right off one of the great relief panels found in Persian and Babylonian palaces!