Tauric Chersonesus, Panticapaeum.
Stater circa 350-300, AV 9.12 g. Facing bearded head of Pan, slightly l. Rev. Π – A – N Griffin standing l., head facing and its r. forepaw raised. Locker Lampson 122 = Gulbenkian 583 (these dies). Gulbenkian 584 (this obverse die) and 580 (this reverse die). K. Regling, Der Griechische Goldschatz von Prinkipo, ZfN XLI, 1931, 165 (this obverse die). Jameson 2143. Gillet 851 (this coin).
Of the highest rarity, the finest specimen in private hands of very few known. One of the
most important and desirable coins of the entire Greek World featuring a portrait of
Pan of enchanting beauty, the work of an extremely talented master engraver.
Perfectly struck and centred in high relief on a very large flan.
Good extremely fine

Ex F. Schlessinger XI, 1934, Hermitage duplicates part II, 102 and New York XXVII, 2012, Prospero, 213 sales. Previously privately purchased from Bank Leu in 1991. From the Buratschkof and Charles Gillet collections and from the Collection of a Man in Love with Art.

As the most powerful city in the Tauric Chersonesus with deep involvement in the lucrative Black Sea grain trade, Panticapaeum and its rulers, the Bosporan kings, were no strangers to gold coinage. Gold staters were produced in the name of the city on both a local Bosporan standard (c. 9.1g) and the internationally-recognised Attic standard (c. 8.6 g) between c. 380 and 304 BC. These coins regularly featured the head of a satyr on the obverse and a griffin with a spear in its mouth. While the former has sometimes been misunderstood as a representation of Pan and therefore a punning reference to the city, it has been shown that the features are actually those of a nameless satyr and the head should probably be understood as a reference to the Spartocid dynasty of Bosporan kings, whose real founder was a certain Satyros I. The griffin type probably alludes to the mythical composite creatures who were believed to guard the gold found in the mountains of Scythia. Although he was a little skeptical of the reports he claims to have received from the Scythians, Herodotus describes the griffins as neighbors to the Arimaspi, a northern people each possessing a single eye in the center of their foreheads, who made constant attempts to steal the gold (4.13.1). Pliny the Elder, who accepted the story at face value, expanded it to note that the griffins made their nests in burrows in the ground which contained gold nuggets and it was these that the Arimaspi tried to take while the griffins were merely defending their eggs and young (HN 7.2, 10.70). On the staters of Panticapaeum the head of the satyr is always depicted in profile facing left except for one spectacular and extremely rare issue for which the engraver decided to break with custom and depict the satyr facing three-quarters left. He may have been inspired to attempt this artistically difficult new treatment of the head under the influence of a wider numismatic fashion for three-quarter facing heads on Greek coins that developed at the end of the fifth and in the early fourth century BC. The fashion appears to have been triggered by the exquisite three-quarter facing head of Arethusa pioneered by Kimon during the period of the signing artists at Syracuse, after which similar heads also began to appear on coins struck by cities like Heracleia in Italy, Larissa in Thessaly, Aenus in Thrace, Amphipolis in Macedonia, and even Persian satraps in Cilicia and Samaria. However, of these, it is really only the three-quarter facing head issue of Panticapaeum that is truly worthy of being placed directly beside Kimon’s tetradrachm as a monument of Greek numismatic art. The extreme beauty of this rare type of Panticapaeum has been charmingly summed up by Godfrey Locker Lampson, whose specimen was struck from the same dies as this coin. As he puts it, “The head of the satyr is a marvel of speaking portraiture. That so much expression could be packed into so small a round would not be believed by anyone who had not seen it.... If a single coin had to be selected from those described in these pages, as by the greatest of all die-engravers, whoever he may have been, whose work had lasted to the present day, the writer would choose this one. Its creator has left no name behind him, but none but a consummate artist of remarkable and original genius could have produced this unforgettable and amazing little gem.” (Locker Lampson Collection, vii). It is indeed a very great shame that there was no period of signing artists in the Tauric Chersonesus similar to that of Syracuse and wider Greek Sicily. Then we might know who this Panticapaean Kimon really was who managed to capture the image of the satyr with such sublime skill and subtlety. The detailed treatment of the facial features and the hair create the masterful illusion that the engraver was working from life and that he had actually seen a satyr lurking out in the wild lands of Scythia at the borders of the Chersonesus. The soulful eyes and mouth of the satyr seem to carry a hint of surprise, almost as if he had been suddenly caught unawares while wandering the woods in search of full wine amphoras or pretty nymphs.The present coin represents an extraordinarily rare example of the highest Classical Greek artistry. It is rendered all the more remarkable by the fact that it was not produced in one of the great bastions of culture and art like Athens or Syracuse, but rather at a distant outpost at the northern edge of the known Greek world. The northern lands beyond the limits of the Bosporan kingdom still retained their air of mystery in the fourth century BC continuing down to the first century AD, when Pliny the Elder was composing his Natural History. It was a place dominated by Scythians and other peoples characterised as wild and savage in contrast with the norms of Greek culture; a place where the fantastic still seemed possible and amazing stories might not be entirely invented; a place where satyrs and other spirits of the wilderness might still roam just outside the view of the civilised. However, despite the obvious civilisation and refinement of the engraver of the present stater, he has managed to catch a fleeting glimpse of a satyr and preserve it for all time in beautiful lustrous gold. In our own age, when science and technology have sucked so much of the wonder and appreciation of the fantastic out of the world, we can only offer our deepest gratitude.