FORVM`s Classical Numismatics Discussion Board
Numismatic and History Discussion Forums => Coin of the Day => Topic started by: David Atherton on February 14, 2020, 05:34:08 am
-
My latest coin features a kindly, almost grandfatherly, Vespasian. https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-160062
The die engraves working on Vespasian's early bronze issues were an extremely talented bunch. They were likely the same engravers that had produced many of the superb dies recently under Nero and Galba. Some of Vespasian's best numismatic portraits come from this early period of the reign. C. H. V. Sutherland in his masterful Roman Coins waxes eloquently over them: 'Vespasian's aes, however, and not merely the sestertii, developed a full magnificence of portraiture. Again the heads were large, even massive, and normally in high relief, giving a strong impression of the purely profile view of sculpture in the round. And, because of the larger scale which this aes permitted, a wealth of detail could be achieved: close-cut hair, finely wrinkled brow, a minutely rendered profile eye, and all the jowls and neck-folds of an old man. The beauty of the work lay in its realism, strong in authority and yet delicate in its execution; and it was the technical delicacy to strength of conception that Vespasian's coinage clearly excelled over that of Galba.'
I think this coin exhibits exactly what Sutherland was talking about.