MYSIA. Kyzikos. Circa 357/6-330 BC. Stater (Electrum, 20 mm, 16.05 g, 2 h). Laureate head of Apollo facing slightly to right; below, tunny to right. Rev. Quadripartite incuse square. BMC 56. Boston MFA 1492 = Warren 1436. SNG Paris 283-4. Von Fritze I, 132 and pl. IV, 18. Very rare and exceptionally well preserved for the issue, surely among the finest known examples. With a superb portrait of Apollo in the finest late Classical style. A few faint scratches, otherwise, about extremely fine.


This magnificent head of Apollo belongs to a small and distinguished group of facing and three-quarter-facing types in the electrum coinage of Kyzikos, among them Athena, Medusa, Zeus, Zeus Ammon and Demeter. Such compositions demanded exceptional skill from the die engraver: instead of the conventional profile, the face had to be constructed in depth, with the eyes, nose, cheeks and mouth all contributing to the illusion of a head turning in space. The result here is strikingly sculptural, an effect made all the more impressive by the remarkably fresh preservation of the highest points of the relief.

The type can scarcely be separated from the celebrated tetradrachms of Amphipolis struck in the years immediately preceding Philip II’s capture of the city in 357/6 BC, whose laureate Apollo is shown in an almost identical three-quarter view. The close correspondence in pose, proportions and treatment strongly suggests that the Kyzikene engraver was drawing directly upon this famous late Classical model. Adapted to the smaller field of an electrum stater and placed above the city’s characteristic tunny, the Amphipolitan conception was thus recast as one of the most accomplished portrait types in the extraordinary coinage of Kyzikos.