SICILY. Syracuse. Deinomenid Tyranny, 485-466 BC. Tetradrachm (Silver, 26 mm, 17.11 g, 12 h), circa 485-483. Charioteer driving quadriga walking to right, holding kentron in his right hand and reins in his left; above, Nike flying right and preparing to alight on the reins to crown the horses with a wreath.
Rev. ΣV-RΑ-ΚΟ-ΣΙΟΝ Diademed head of Arethousa to left, her hair drawn up at the back, wearing necklace with pendant and pearl necklace; around, four dolphins swimming left. Basel 430 (
same dies). Boehringer 48.6 (
this coin, V27/R31). HGC 2, 1305. Nanteuil 320 (
this coin). Rizzo pl. XXXIV, 14 (
same dies) = Jameson 1905. SNG München 922 (
same dies). Beautifully toned and with an exceptional pedigree. A few faint scratches and with minor deposits and light die rust on the obverse
, otherwise, good very fine.
From the collection of Dr. med. Cora Flinsch (1920-2022), ex Münzen & Medaillen AG 79, 28 February-1 March 1994, 158 and Leu 15, 4-5 May 1976, 101, from the collections of H. de Nanteuil (1876-1941) and Commendatore Vincenzo Pappalardo, Mayor of Catania, Egger XLV, 12 November 1913, 347 ('Treffliches Exemplar von feinem archaischen Stil und grosser Seltenheit'), and from the Frank Sherman Benson Collection, Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, 3 February 1909, 164 281.
As we outlined in the note accompanying the cover piece of our most recent Floor Auction 16 - the magnificent Kimon dekadrachm - the Pappalardo Collection has a fascinating and still largely underappreciated history. Lot numbers 1-441 of Brüder Egger Auction XLV (1913), which consisted exclusively of coins from Magna Graecia and included our dekadrachm, all originated from the collection of the Mayor of Catania, Commendatore Vincenzo Pappalardo. Decades later, he would play a key role in financing the monumental work Monete greche della Sicilia (1946) by G. E. Rizzo. Most of these coins, however, originally belonged to his father, Decio Pappalardo - a passionate numismatist active since the 1850s, who maintained close ties with Tom Virzi of Palermo and New York, and Heinrich Hirsch, father of Dr. Jakob Hirsch.
However, unlike most of the Pappalardo coins sold in the 1913 Brüder Egger auction, our coin was not inherited from Decio Pappalardo but was added to the Mayor of Catania’s collection at a later point. As its pedigree shows, he acquired it at the 1909 Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge sale of the Frank Sherman Benson Collection. The piece thus boasts an impressive provenance, tracing its journey from Frank Sherman Benson through Commendatore Vincenzo Pappalardo, H. de Nanteuil, and Dr. med. Cora Flinsch
