Nomos 20

CARIA. Knidos. Circa 465-449 BC. Drachm (Silver, 17 mm, 6.08 g, 9 h). Forepart of lion to right, with open jaws and protruding tongue. Rev. Κ-Ν-Ι Head of Aphrodite to right, her hair bound with a taenia and tied in a long pony-tail at the back, wearing a simple necklace and with a pearled neck truncation; all within an incuse square. BMC 13. Cahn 83 (O39/R58, but unlisted since Cahn did not know of the Diez Collection and the coin was unillustrated in Hirsch XIV). McClean 8473 (same dies). SNG Copenhagen 241 (same dies). Toned and struck from one of the prettiest of all Knidian reverse dies. Minor flatness on the obverse, otherwise, about extremely fine.

From the collection attributed by Lanz to two artists, either Robert Diez (1844-1922), who lived in Dresden, or Julius Diez (1870-1957), who lived in Munich, Lanz 151, 30 June 2011, 168 and ex Hirsch XIV, 27 November 1905, 532. Sold with a post WWI collector's ticket.

Weirdly enough, as the introduction to the Lanz catalogue tells us, this coin comes from the collection of an artist named Diez, but which one is not at all clear! In fact, in Lanz the vast majority of the good pieces, of which this is one, were acquired between 1900 and World War I, when Robert was between 56 and 70 and Julius was between 30 and 44. All the later pieces, acquired after RD's death in 1922 and mostly rather ratty in quality, must have been bought by Julius. We can be sure that this piece was in Robert's collection since in Hirsch's own hand catalogue the buyer of this coin was identified as "GehRat" = Geheimrat, a governmental position that was only held by Robert Diez, not Julius.