Hadrian / Zeus Ammon from Forvm

[slokind]

I like Alexandria when they're big enough not to need small detail (Alexandria doesn't do it on Imperial issues), and I thought Hadrian would go well with my Aigeai ones while the bust would make a good companion for the Sev Alex that I've had for three years and is certainly my favorite Sev Alex portrait.
So I'm posting them together.  There's a marble head of this kind of a Zeus-Ammon, I think among the Ince-Blundell marbles.
So I just bought the Hadrian, and I like him very much, the bust of Zeus-Ammon even better.  I didn't notice on the listing that it's rare, but that's quite all right, and it's my excuse for posting it in COTD.
The data are in Forvm, but I can add them as soon as I've copied them out.
Pat L.
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[Randygeki(h2)]

Nice! I really like te portrait of Zeus

[areich]

I agree but the Severus Alexander is even better in my opinion.

[slokind]

Yes, by year 10, Sev Alex was no longer a boy, and his life had not been such as to maintain a cosseted innocence; he had seen a lot and had a lot to worry about and think about  (though he may not have been much of a thinker).  It is hard to imagine that the engraver here was not trying to encapsule his idea of the emperor, and he certainly has done that, whether his idea was accurate and true or not: the portrait is memorable.  To do that to a god, still less to a conventional composite god, would of course be inappropriate and ineffective.  The Sev Alex drachm is rather worn, the Hadrian Zeus-Ammon bust is excellent condition, but both coins to me escape the too frequent flaccidity of Alexandrian Eirenes, et al.  Pat L.

[ancientdave]

Nice coin.

[Noah]

The thing that is great about your taste is that you come from an art history angle.  Your specimens might not always be the cream of the crop pricewise or even in terms of condition, but they ALWAYS are artistically marvelous.  I am still waiting for you to open a gallery here at Forvm for us to see your entire collection (or at least part of it).   

Best, Noah

[slokind]

Thank you, Noah.  When I'm collecting just for pleasure, not trying to study a mint, say, I do choose my own taste.  Scruples require me to add that art historians do not permit themselves that luxury; for art history, evidence is evidence.  When it was my turn to teach Art Appreciation (and we did take turns, because one can go stale on that kind of a course), then I did take pains to analyze what it is that makes some work more memorable and more admirable than the general run.  I think that the coins I choose to buy, just because they speak to me, I choose as a failed artist.  Many art historians and other kinds of art writers would have been artists if they'd really had what that takes.
I have trouble with the Gallery software.  That is why I have been making Albums in Picasa, since my blog created a Picasa resource for me.  It is very easy, and I can change images whenever I need to.  Of course, I also have some albums of no interest except perhaps to my family, but you can ignore those. http://picasaweb.google.com/slokind  One place or the other or at my web site in Forvm I'll be posting more, as I can.
Pat L.

[Noah]

Art History vs. Art Appreciation...of course!  Well, you appreciate well!   Thanks for the link; I look forward to checking it out.

Best, Noah