Sicily, Akragas, tetradrachm c. 410-406 BC,

‡ Sicily, Akragas, tetradrachm c. 410-406 BC, fast quadriga right, charioteer crowned with wreath by Nike flying left; in ex., crab, rev., ΑΚΡ-Α-Γ-ΑΝΤΙ-ΝΩ-Ν (retrograde), two eagles right devouring hare on rocks, 16.87g, die axis 3.00 (Westermark 588.12, pl. 38 = Jameson 1889 = Seltman, ‘The Engravers of the Akragantine Decadrachms’, NC, 1948, 6e, this piece; SNG Lloyd 818; Ward 139; Kraay-Hirmer 178, all same dies), a spectacular composition, fine toning, good very fine and very rare Provenance: Jacob Hirsch XXXIV, 5 May 1914, lot 119; Robert Jameson collection; Charles Gillet collection, private catalogue pl. 17, 352; Bank Leu 45, 26 May 1988, lot 30; European Connoisseur collection (formed before 2002).Note: Akragas came late to the adoption of the quadriga as a design type and it only appears on the final group of tetradrachms. The engraver of this remarkably well-preserved example has created an amalgam of the old and new; a ‘“piecing together” of various points of view’. The horses are stolid, the wheel almost frontal, but the charioteer is rendered in a three-quarter view. The tail of the nearest horse runs parallel to the outline of the wheel, while those of the farther horses can be seen trailing above the back of the first horse, a detail which, ‘does not occur on any other quadriga of Akragas or Syracuse, but can be found in vase painting’ (see G. Richter, Perspective in Greek and Roman Art, 1970, p. 32, fig. 143 [BM E 466]). Curiously, Westermark also observed that ‘a quadriga of similar type...was adopted for the rare dekadrachms’, but left no doubt that they were (quite obviously) the work of different hands (pp. 118-119).