Lot 5058

Description

Thrace, Island of Thrace, Thasos, (c.410 B.C.), silver stater, (8.312 grams), obv. naked ithyphallic bearded Satyr (classical style) in kneeling running attitude carrying off nymph whose hand is extended beyond the Satyr's back, A to right, rev. quadripartite incuse square, (S.1747, BMC 30, Le Rider Guide de Thasos, 6, Kraay-Hirmer 437, Gulbenkian 464, ACGC 521). Very fine, flan crack with good facial and phallic detail, very scarce.

The capture of Thasos in 463 BC by the Athenians after its revolt two years earlier could well have terminated the series of the late archaic and early classical staters. Between the years 435-411 the old satyr and nymph theme was revived, but the artistic style was very different. The rape of the nymph by a bestial satyr has become a ’fling’ of a not unwilling lady in the arms of an almost human abductor. An admirable die engraving masterpiece at the apogee of the Greek high Classical artistic period, when Polykleitos of Argos was said to have been unsurpassed in making images of people, as Phidias was of gods. A similar example was in the A. Tkalec auction of May 2009 (lot 29) struck from the same dies with similar flan cracks realised 6,800 Swiss Francs at that sale.