Sale: Nomos 8, Lot: 46. Estimate CHF25000.  Closing Date: Monday, 21 October 2013.  Sold For CHF20000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SICILY, Naxos. Circa 430-420 BC. Tetradrachm (Silver, 25mm, 16.29 g 3), c. 425. Bearded head of Dionysos to right, wearing a hair band ornamented with an ivy wreath, and with his relatively short hair hanging loose in curly locks. Rev. ΝΑΞΙΟΝ Nude and bearded Silenos squatting, facing, his right knee raised, his left on the ground, and his tail coming out to left, turning his head to the left towards the two-handled, stemless drinking cup he holds in his right hand, and holding an upright thyrsos with his left; to left, ivy branch. Cahn 101.8 (this coin). Kraay / Hirmer 8 (same obverse die). Very rare. An attractive piece, lightly toned. Good very fine.

From the B. in B. Collection, ex Hess 253, 8 March 1983, 75 and Feuardent, 9 June 1913, 102, and from the collections of W. Froehner, Ratto 13 May 1912, 438 and C. Butler, Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, 3 July 1911, 78.

The tetradrachms of Naxos are among the most celebrated of all the coinage of Sicily. The early classical pieces, Cahn 54, are a triumph of design, while the later 5th century issues like the present are perfect examples of the way portraiture had, over little more than a generation, become more elegant and natural.