We found 653685 price guide item(s) matching your search
There are 653685 lots that match your search criteria. Subscribe now to get instant access to the full price guide service.
Click here to subscribe- List
- Grid
-
653685 item(s)/page
Italy. Kingdom of Sicily, Charles I of Anjou AV Saluto d'oro. Naples, struck after AD 1278. + KAROL' • DEI • GRA • IERL'm • SICILIE • REX, coat-of-arms of Jerusalem and Anjou; rosette flanked by stars on either side; above, upturned crescent flanked by stars / + AVE • GRACIA • PLENA • DOMINYS TECYM, the Annunciation: Archangel Gabriel standing right, holding lily in left hand and pointing with outstretched right at Virgin standing facing slightly left, raising hands in adoration; between them, lily in vase. CNI XIX 1-4; Spahr -; MEC 14, 675-676; Friedberg 808; MIR 18; Pannuti-Riccio 1. 4.35g, 22mm, 12h. Extremely Fine.
Lucania, Herakleia AR Stater. Circa 330 BC. Head of Athena right, wearing single-pendant earring, necklace, and crested Attic helmet decorated with Skylla throwing stone held in right hand; EY to right / |-HPAKΛEIΩN, Herakles wrestling the Nemean lion: Herakles stands facing, head and upper body turned to left, right hand holding club behind body, left hand grasping lion’s throat; fluted jug beneath. [Club and AΠΟΛ to left]. Work 47 (same dies); Van Keuren 51 (same obv. die); HN Italy 1378; SNG ANS 66; SNG Lloyd -; Basel -; Bement 138 (same obv. die); Gulbenkian -; Hunterian 7 (same dies); McClean 825 (same obv. die); Weber 706 (same dies). 7.76g, 21mm, 4h. Good Extremely Fine. Rare. An excellent example of this type, one of the finest to have come to the market in the past fifteen years. From the Ambrose Collection; Ex Gemini VII, 9 January 2011, lot 30. The flourishing of an artistic culture in Herakleia is attested by the beauty and variety of its coinage, and that they survive in relative profusion is demonstrative of the wealth and commercial importance of the city. Despite this, it is not often that one encounters them in as good a state of preservation as is the case with the present coin. The depiction of Herakles on the reverse of this coin places the hero in a typical fighting stance of the Greek martial discipline Pankration, or Pammachon (total combat) as it was earlier known. Indeed, this fighting style was said to have been the invention of Herakles and Theseus as a result of their using both wresting and boxing in their encounters with opponents. The stance portrayed on this coin is paralleled on an Attic black-figure vase in the BM depicting two competitors, one in a choke hold similar to that of the lion here. The composition of this design is very deliberate - as the lion leaps forwards, Herakles who had been facing the lion, turns his body sideways. The myths tell us that Herakles had first stunned the beast with his club, and now he dodges the lion's bite and reaches his right arm around its head to place it in a choke hold. Impressively careful attention has been paid to the detail on this die, including realistic rendering of the hero's musculature, which has been engraved in fine style.
Domitian AR Denarius. Rome, AD 95-96. IMP CAES DOMIT AVG GERM P M TR P XV, laureate head right / IMP XXII COS XVII CENS P P, winged figure of Minerva flying left, holding spear and shield. C. 294; BMC 237; RIC 791; CBN 210. 3.56g, 19mm, 6h. Good Extremely Fine. The iconography of this coin is most intriguing. This is the only depiction of a winged Minerva in all of Roman coinage, and indeed the concept itself has few parallels in surviving classical art. The closest comparable figure may be found in the winged statue of Minerva Victrix at Ostia, which originally formed part of the decoration of the upper gate known as the Porta Romana. This winged form of Minerva may well have been taken from earlier Greek images of Athena, such as that shown on a black-figure vase found at Orvieto and illustrated in Röm. Mitt. XII, pl. xii, which shows two representations of Athena – one winged and one without wings. With the exception of Nike-Victoria, most of the Greco-Roman gods had shed their wings by the early classical period; that such an archaism should be revived in the time of Domitian is therefore quite inexplicable, save perhaps for the possibility that it was simply an act of whimsy by an emperor who was known to favour Minerva above all other gods.
Mysia, Kyzikos EL Stater. Circa 500-450 BC. Cerberus standing to left on tunny fish / Quadripartite incuse square. Von Fritze 10; Boston 1538. 15.90g, 19mm. Etremely Fine. Extremely Rare. Ex David Walsh Collection, privately purchased in 2001. Early Greek descriptions of Cerberus (Kerberos) vary greatly. The earliest literary appearance of Cerberus in Hesiod’s Theogeny (c. 8th – 7th centuries BC) portrays the monster with fifty heads, while Pindar (c.522-443 BC) gives him one hundred heads. Later writers however almost all describe Cerberus as having three heads. For practical reasons, representations of Cerberus in Greek art often depict him with two visible heads (the third being assumed to be hidden), but occasionally three heads, and rarely only one, are also seen. The earliest securely datable artefact depicting a three-headed Cerberus is a mid-sixth century BC Laconian cup by the Hunt painter, which clearly shows the beast with three canine heads, covered by a coat of snakes, and a tail ending in a snake’s head, held on a chain leash by Herakles. A slightly later amphora fount at Vulci c.525-510 (Louvre F204) shows a two-headed Cerberus in similar pose to that on our present coin, also with a snake-headed tail. Though representations of Cerberus in Greek art are fairly common, with the familiar story of Herakles’ twelfth labour being a popular motif, depictions of Cerberus on Greek coins are seemingly limited to only this issue of Kyzikos, an extremely rare bronze issue of Epeiros (see Roma Numismatics 4, lot 114), and an exceedingly rare stater of Cumae in Campania (Rutter 76). Barclay Head proposed that the appearance of the monster here was in reference to or in honour of the city of Kimmerikon, sited on the southern shore of the Cimmerian Bosphorus which had previously been known as Cerberion (Pliny 6, 6, 6, 18), based on the assumption that the city would have been a familiar destination for Kyzikene traders. However it is probably incorrect to assign any specific significance to the type, since it is well known that Kyzikos frequently took inspiration for its coin types from the art of other Greek city-states’ coins and wares. The designs of Kyzikos’ coinage appear to have been decided upon apparently without necessarily requiring said types to have any deep meaning to either Kyzikene citizens or indeed anyone else in particular, often being admired it seems purely for their compositional beauty. Since the design of this coin does not copy any known type (the Epeirote bronze not being issued until the mid-fourth century), and Cerberos on Rutter 76 being of markedly different style (and only part of the design), it is probable that it copies the design of a vase or other vessel, such as the aforementioned Louvre F204 - an Attic red figure amphora - which found its way to Kyzikos. Regardless of the origin of the design, the present coin is a magnificent example of this important mythological theme, and is one of very few known staters of the type, the hektes being relatively more plentiful, but still rare.
Mysia, Kyzikos EL Stater. Circa 500-450 BC. Double-bodied winged sphinx standing with head facing atop tunny fish to right, wearing ouraios, hair falling in plaited locks behind / Quadripartite incuse square. Von Fritze -, cf. 128, pl. IV, 14 (hekte); Greenwell -, cf. 101 (hekte); SNG France -, cf. 280 (hekte); CNG inventory 925160. 16.16g, 20mm. Of the highest rarity, one of only three known specimens, and arguably the finest. Ex Roma Numismatics VIII, 28 September 2014, lot 631. The sphinx as a type recurs frequently on the coinage of Kyzikos and new types are still being discovered today, yet the double-bodied sphinx is certainly the most curious depiction of this mythological monster, and the reason for it being so is not easy to divine. Greenwell (p. 102), who was citing Cousinéry, proposed that it was simply an artistic device for showing the sphinx as seated facing, 'arising from the difficulty of depicting a figure in that position'. This proposition appears plausible, until one considers that double-bodied owls are also engraved on coins at various cities including Athens, where they certainly had no problem with engraving a front-facing owl. More damning still for this simplistic view, the double-bodied sphinx appears also in statuary where again there is no logical reason to sculpt it so unless it possesses some significance - see in particular the limestone Tarentine column capital of the Corinthian order at the Metropolitan Museum, New York, and also the marble gravestone decorated with a loutrophoros supported by a double-bodied sphinx at the British Museum (both 4th century). The concept of double-bodied monsters was an ancient one, and probably originated in ancient Sumeria, as they are seen on cylinder seals from this culture, and are repeated later on ancient Iranian goldwork. Here, the double-bodied monsters probably signified a dualistic nature that is easily adaptable and can be one thing or another, or a span between two distinct yet connected elements such as sunrise and sunset. Tom Rasmussen (Corinth and the Orientalising Phenomenon) proposes that the artistic portrayal of the sphinx as a double-bodied monster was first devised at Corinth, where it can be found on a Protocorinthian olpe vase, circa 640 BC, known as the Chigi olpe which is now in the Villa Giulia in Rome. This was likely the product of a blending of Greek and Eastern imagery, yet the result is wholly original; indeed Rasmussen points out that 'Greek Orientalising is rarely straight copying of Oriental'. It has often been suggested that the electrum staters of Kyzikos take their types from a wide range of artistic sources across a broad geographical range, as might be expected for a city-state that relied almost entirely for its prosperity on being a commerce hub where east and west would meet and exchange wares and ideas. Whether or not Corinth was the origin of the double-bodied Sphinx, it is not surprising that such an intriguing motif should be adopted at Kyzikos.
Marc Antony AR Denarius. Military mint travelling with Antony and Plancus in central Greece, 39 BC. M•ANTON•IMP•AVG•III VIR•R•P•C, lituus and vase / L•PLANCVS•IMP•ITER, thunderbolt, vase and caduceus. Crawford 522/4; Sear, CRI 255; R. Newman, "A Dialogue of Power in the Coinage of Antony and Octavian," ANSAJN 2 (1990), 39.2; BMCRR (East) 118; RSC 22. 3.79g, 19mm, 7h. Very Fine. Extremely Rare; only 12 examples on CoinArchives.
Parker Duofold Mandarin Yellow Limited Edition Fountain Pen, produced in 1995 as part of a 10,000 piece limited edition. Numbered 05834 with the original yellow and black presentation box and papers, together with Parker Emerald and Ruby Ink Bottles. Note: The bright yellow colour was inspired by a Cloisonné vase that G. Parker encountered on a trip to Japan, the original model was the design he most favoured.
-
653685 item(s)/page