Among the Finest

494998.

Sold For $37500

SICILY, Kamarina. Circa 425-405 BC. AR Tetradrachm (24.5mm, 17.46 g, 4h). Athena, wearing crested Attic helmet and long chiton, holding kentron in right hand and reins in both, driving galloping quadriga right; above, Nike flying left, preparing to crown Athena with wreath held in both hands; in exergue, two amphorai dividing [K]AM-A-PINA / Beardless head of Herakles left, wearing lion skin headdress tied at neck; bow to left. Westermark & Jenkins 152 (O10/R19); HGC 2, 526; SNG Fitzwilliam 945 (same dies); SNG Stockholm 431 = Pozzi 400 (same dies); Athena Fund I 1 (this coin); BMC 13 (same dies); Gillet 368 = Rizzo pl. V, 15 (same dies); Jameson 525a (same dies); Weber 1246 (same dies). toned. In NGC encapsulation 4284630-002, graded Ch XF★, Strike: 5/5, Surface: 5/5, Fine Style. Struck in high relief from dies of fine style, one of the finest specimens.

From the Gasvoda Collection. Ex Triton XIX (5 January 2016), lot 32; Münzen und Medaillen AG 89 (14 June 2000), lot 38; Athena Fund (Part 1, Sotheby’s Zurich, 26 October 1993), lot 1; Numismatic Fine Arts XXVII (4 December 1991), lot 11.

Originally founded by settlers from Syracuse in 598 BC, Kamarina was dependent upon its mother-city for much of its history. A revolt in 553 BC left the city devastated and partly abandoned until 492 BC, when the tyrant Hippokrates of Gela re-founded the city with groups of mercenaries. The first coinage of Kamarina, with its martial design of a panoply of arms, dates from this era. The first period of coinage ended in 484 BC, when Hippokrates' successor Gelon forcibly relocated its residents to Syracuse. Kamarina was re-founded a third time in 461 BC, by settlers from Gela. This stunning tetradrachm, with its striking head of Herakles anticipating the similar coinage of Alexander the Great by nearly a century, dates from Kamarina’s third incarnation, in the last quarter of the fifth century BC. During this period, at least one athlete from the city, Psaumis, was victorious at the Olympics, a feat celebrated in Pindar’s fourth and fifth Olympian odes, and possibly alluded to with the prize urns below the racing chariot of this coin.