A touching couple

[moonmoth]

Most of this coin isn't particularly interesting.  (It's from Singara and has Tyche on the reverse.)  It's struck a bit off centre; the strike is partially flat and detail is missing; it's seen some wear.  But I love the portraits of Gordian and his wife on the obverse.  They look quite realistic.  Gordian has the trademark big nose, but it looks different from the version you see on the antoniniani.  Tranquillina too has a prominent nose, it even looks broken, and a slight overbite.  They make a nice couple, gazing into each other's eyes and not seeming to ignore each other like some confronting couples.

The trouble with this looking realistic is that she looks completely different from other, equally realistic-looking portraits. One is posted underneath; notice the dead straight nose and the prominent chin.  In each case, it's the individualised detail that makes them look like real people.  What's going on here?  Did the artists just depict people they knew who vaguely fitted the descriptions they had?  Were they telling their lovers "I can get you on the coinage, baby!"

[gavignano]

The Gordian looks very Gordieish to me, but yikes, Tranquillina not so. She looks like Julia Domna after an ancient, and not particularly successful, attempt at plastic surgery.

[slokind]

On the other hand, I see nothing, either in the general view or in the detail, that looks at all like modern modification or mistaken efforts in cleaning.  Not every die engraver had the knack of portraiture, and this one seems not to have had the eye or knack (or a good model) for this couple.  I think it's quite a refreshingly different coin.  Pat L.

[PeterD]

My drawing skills are minimal, but I always had more difficulty in drawing a woman's face than a man's. Perhaps it's something in the genes.

The portaits on my coin of Messembria (Demeter reverse) are similar to Moonmoth's. What is notable though, is the way Tranquillina seems to be towering over Gordian. Hope the engraver didn't get in trouble for that!

[Rupert]

My drawing skills are minimal, but I always had more difficulty in drawing a woman's face than a man's. Perhaps it's something in the genes.

Certainly the genes.

Scene 1: You draw a man. Let's say the result is like on Vespasian's earliest denarii, a little like Vitellius, a little like - well, nobody special, maybe a little like him. He'll see his portrait and say: Oh well, it's all right, buddy. Not bad.

Scene 2: You draw a woman. No matter how it comes out, she'll look at the picture, dazed, and then start: Who's that? ME? Are you joking? Now look at that nose! Did you ever look at mine at all? And these cheeks are anybody's but not mine! Whom did you really think of when you did this? And I never had such a double chin! What, that's no double chin? Look here....

The genes. The missing Y chromosome, to be precise.

Rupert

[moonmoth]

The portaits on my coin of Messembria (Demeter reverse) are similar to Moonmoth's. What is notable though, is the way Tranquillina seems to be towering over Gordian. Hope the engraver didn't get in trouble for that!

Well, I think these engravers had two things to do with such couples, once they got past the "likeness" problem.  One was to make sure the woman was always looking slightly down, so as to seem submissive to the man.  The other was to have them looking into each other's eyes.  The engraver on your coin has ended up with an unexpected result!

[slokind]

Maybe.  But if they sometimes worked from casts taken from something else, this may just be the work of a very literal-minded by-the-hour sort of guy who simply first engraved one head and then the other and never considered anything more.  Pat L.