My latest coin features a kindly, almost grandfatherly,
Vespasian.
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-160062The 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.