A good one I came across just recently that I had never heard of. There are many others.
https://books.google.com/books?id=S21LAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
Nick: Wow, that's a cool one! Great plates in there. It's also a great example of what Mauseus was saying:
I would add a caveat in using such illustrations in that the accuracy of the engraver and the verity of the reproduction can vary an awful lot. A range between extreme accuracy and details reproduced through to cartoon like and extremely dubious features represented.
I think it's probably also worth distinguishing between illustrations meant to (1) accurately represent a particular specimen, (2) represent an idealized version of the
type, and (3) simply aid the reader in interpreting difficult features and legends. (I wonder if maybe
Nick's example above, the Sicilian coins, are a fourth category -- artistic representations? -- or more of the third
type.)
“PERFECT FAC-SIMILES”!Another favorite 19th cent. engraver of mine is
Henry A. Ogg. In the attachment/excerpt below, he
still aimed at a realistic depiction. As
Akerman wrote, the illustrations are “made from the actual coins, and are confidently presented as perfect fac-similes.”
John Yonge
Akerman. 1834.
A Descriptive Catalogue of Rare and Unedited Roman Coins – From the Earliest Period of Roman Coinage, to the Extinction of the Empire Under Constantinus Paleologos · Volume 1 .
London: Wilson. (Available online:
https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Descriptive_Catalogue_of_Rare_and_Uned/T0dRAAAAcAAJ?gbpv=0)
[
ATTACHMENT 1]
Another “realistic” or “facsimile” example, Leon Dardel from my copy of the 1871 Imhoof-Blumer
catalog mentioned in my first comment (if you compare to the same coins' museum photos today, they're remarkably accurate):
(very expandable/click to zoom)IDEALIZED BUT REALISTIC.:
Here is my one coin that I suspect was one of the models for Leon Dardel's illustrations 11 & 12 on pl. LXIV of
Sabatier’s (1862)
Description générale des monnaies byzantines frappées sous les empereurs d'Orient. (Available online, lower
quality:
https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/21hljz-ggKQC?hl=en&gbpv=1.)
[
ATTACHMENT 2]
As you can see, there are two reverses, for which he tried to accurately render
his two models. (He believed -- mistakenly, I think -- that two different
rev. types existed. I suspect my coin was the right
reverse, No. 12, copied from
de Saulcy’s 1842 RN article
[LINK], though I think he also handled the actual coin, since he blended some its detailed features into the
obverse drawing too. It's from the
Goodacre Collection; unfortunately,
his 1931 statement re: its publication
history was a
bit vague.)
For the
obverse, Dardel merged features of two specimens (mine, I believe, plus the specimen that was later
DOC IV, XXXIV 56.1
[LINK] =
Hendy 1969 34.1
[LINK] = Peirce
collection = Prince Karl Egon II of Furtstenberg Coll.,
Cahn 75, lot 1759
[LINK]).
HIGHLIGHTING FEATURES TO AID IN IDENTIFYING COINS & RECOGNIZING TYPES.Last attachment is a much more recent (1979) line-drawn illustration – for which Richard Plant’s books are well-known. In this case, the
reverse of my coin (ex-Plant
Collection) shows enough common characteristics with the
reverse of
his type 1881 illustration that I'm be reasonably confident it was the model. (There are others out there, e.g., this Antoninus Alexandrian
Drachm from
CNG was clearly a model for
his 1979 book:
[LINK].)
I just added this one to my
Forum Gallery:
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=180714The
obverse doesn’t look like any actual specimen of this
type, though. The
obverse die(s) were too large for the flans (which were misshapen), so I’ve never seen one fully centered with a
complete legend. (Not to the extent of Plant’s illustration!)
The “unrealistic”
quality can be seen as a flaw or the advantage to that
style of illustration. You’d never find one single coin to illustrate the full
legend. Even if they're less faithful (or artistic), they do well at emphasizing the important points required for
identification.