Lot 2598

Description

Thrace, Kingdom of, Lysimachus, (323-281 B.C.), silver tetradrachm, (16.728 grams), Pergamon mint, style of that issued c.287 B.C., obv. head of Alexander to right, with diadem and horn of Ammon, within dotted border, K under bust, rev. Athena enthroned to left, supporting Nike, to inner left a cult statue, in exergue a crescent, to left **BASILEWS to right **LUSIMAXOU, (cf.S.6814, Thompson 228, Arnold-Biuchi 73/72 [dies of obv.15, rev.70, illustrated as Pl.4 o13/r66 (original plates numbered incorrectly)]. Well centred and with a very high relief struck on a broad flan with a superb eye, minor edge filing at base, otherwise nearly extremely fine/good very fine and extremely rare, a previously unpublished die combination.

The Pergamon mint issues of Lysimachus are considered to have the finest of the artistic representations of portraiture of Alexander the Great. The issue signed by the engraver K are considered the best of the dramatic style and the closest to the Copenhagen head of Alexander, being that of Alexander's portrait, that Herbert A. Cahn attributes to his second creative die-cutter 'Modellmeister B', c.287 B.C. It was at 'the mint in Pergamon while Philetairos was serving Lysimachus there from c.287 B.C. to c. 282 B.C. the Alexander heads were done in a local version of this later style which is distinctive and very beautiful (fig. 3a)' Blanche R. Brown 'Royal Portraits in Sculpture and Coins' p.14); (fig 3a is the best K tetradrachm in the ANS collection which is in similar condition to the specimen above in this sale). 'In them the surface richness remains but the modelling is more sensitive and subtle. The basic form is relatively more plastic and unified, with fewer concave transitions and with convex forms more clearly delimited and structured...the drawing itself is suave and refined. The Pergamene Alexander ... still has a pervading sense of movement and life. Its particular refinements of features and outlines are not echoed in the Copenhagen portrait, but the smoother, more simplified transitions of the modelling of the face are comparable.' (Ibid, p.14-15)