BRAHMA CANOPY

Macedonia

Amphipolis

Tetradrachm (Silver, 14.42 g 1), 357/6. Laureate bust of Apollo facing, his head turned slightly to the right and with drapery around the neck line. Rev. on square frame surrounding a race torch with its flame to right; to left of the torch handle, Sphinx seated to right. Cf. Kraay/Hirmer 415. Le Rider pl. 50, 20 (this coin). Lorber 43 a (this coin, illustrated in an enlargement on the cover). Very attractively toned, a well-nigh perfect coin, the most beautiful of all the facing-head tet-radrachms of Amphipolis and one of the prettiest of all ancient Greek coins. Extremely fine.

From the Thessalonica Region Hoard of 1965 (Coin Hoards I, 37). This coin is unquestionably one of the great masterpieces of Greek numismatic art, and is surely one of the loveliest. Facing heads were very difficult to engrave, and only the very best, or most confident, die cutters attempted to do them. First used successfully on coinage in late 5th century Sicily (as above, 68, 74, 108), there was a great vogue for such heads in the 4th century, the best known being those on coins from Rhodes, Amphipolis, Ainos, Klazomenai and Larissa. On the whole, those from Amphipolis were the best made, by engravers of great ability, though often with highly varied ideas about how Apollo should look. In some cases he has the toughness of an athlete, while in others he can be very delicately portrayed. The present coin shows us a very young Apollo of a dazzling, ideal beauty, without, however, even a hint of either the staring intensity which makes him clearly godlike on some Amphipolis dies, or the insipidity which appears on others.

LEU81, 158

I just got this from Amazon...It is a book of not learning to draw, but MASTERING the Human figure. And from its contents, it is clear to me that this is its intention. It is based on the drawing course at the Art Students League of New York. It has advice from how to sharpen your pencil (I kid you not)...to how to make forms recede or pop out with different line widths...it explains the planes of the different parts of the body, shadows, hair, and there's some drapery stuff in there too. Some of this stuff is the missing link in my development as a self taught artist. I am going to STUDY this book and do all the exercises. I am very excited!