Sale: CNG 63, Lot: 117. Estimate $7500.
Closing Date: Wednesday, 21 May 2003.
Sold For $8000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee. |
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SICILY, Syracuse. Time of Dionysios I. <405-367 BC. AR Tetradrachm (17.10 gm). Struck circa 405 BC. Obverse die signed by Kimon. Bust of Arethusa facing slightly left, hair flowing loosely, dolphins swimming among loose hairs left and right; AREQOSA above beaded border; [KIMWN] on ampyx, small SW hidden in hairs left / Arethusa driving galloping quadriga left, holding reins; Nike walking above and crowning Arethusa, fallen meta (turning-post) below horses' hooves, grain ear in exergue. Tudeer 81 (V29/R54); SNG ANS 288 (same dies); Dewing 846 (same dies). Near VF, well centered, smooth flan. ($7500)
Ex Classical Numismatic Auctions 23 (13 October 1992), lot 97.
Arguably Kimon's masterwork and the finest representation of the facing head on any coin. Herbert Cahn' s 1993 article, "Arethusa Soteira" in Essays to Carson and Jenkins, identified for the first time the presence of the letters SW hidden in hairs of Arethusa's portrait and suggested it to be shorthand for SWTEIRA ("deliverer"), a reference to the Syracusans' defeat of the Athenians in 415 BC.
