LOT 38PROPERTY FROM THE STACK FAMILY COLLECTIONA MONUMENTAL MARBLE HEAD OF A GODDESS, ROMAN IMPERIAL, CIRCA 1 ST CENTURY A.D.probably Aphrodite, Hera, or an Empress in the guise of a goddess, her centrally parted wavy hair bound in a laurel wreath and surmounted by astephane decorated in relief with alternating rosettes and lotus buds, the bust and back of the head restored in marble.

Height with bust 19 1/2 in.ESTIMATE 20,000 - 30,000 USD

Although Theodore Roosevelt is famous for having railed against the "atrocious hideousness" ofUnited States coin designs, and commissioned sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens to createcoinage "worthy of the ancients," in fact United States coin designers had long relied on antiqueprototypes. The specific sources for virtually all these earlier efforts, however, have been lost.

In 1881, Charles E. Barber, the Chief Engraver of the United States Mint, began to design aseries of pattern coins for subsidiary coinage, one cent to five cents; all bore the same classicallyinspired head of Liberty. The design for the five cent denomination was refined over the next year,and was finally adopted for circulation in 1883. It became known as the "Liberty head nickel" or"Barber nickel" after its designer. Millions were struck for circulation through 1912.

The inspiration for Barber's head of Liberty appears to have been derived from the present bust.Cornelius Vermeule in Numismatic Art in America (1971) noted the increased reliance on Romancult-statues for inspiration by engravers since 1849. He further observed that Barber's "diademedand wreathed head of Liberty on the obverse was modeled almost verbatim from a Greco-Romanhead of Juno or a major personification...." and that "the very head said to have been used as themodel for this nickel...is the centerpiece in the entrance salon of the premises of Messrs. Stack...."

Vermeule continued that the head, "a Greco-Roman restyling of a Greek head of the fourthcentury B.C." had been on display at the Philadelphia Academy of Art from the Civil War until theFirst World War, and that is was here that Barber, along with other Mint artists found theirinspiration and "turned its full, grave if not heavy profile into designs for the coinage."

The headlater passed through a number of private collections, and was at one time in the possession of therenowned Philadelphia coin dealers S.H. and H. Chapman whose partnership lasted from 1878 to1906. Henry Chapman, the younger of the two brothers was well-acquainted with Barber.Chapman died in 1935, and the head is believed to have come into the Stack family's possessionshortly thereafter.

Although Barber took ample license in his rendering, a comparison of Barber's nickel with thehead's profile faithfully replicates the divinity's slightly curving nose (from restoration). Vermeulesummed up their relationship as "what some modern critics would consider a dull, academicstandard of classical divinity in visual form became a keystone in the redesigned denominationsof American coinage."

To read the complete sale catalog, see:Egyptian, Classical, and Western Asiatic AntiquitiesNew York , Thu, 10 Dec 09, 2:00 PM, N08603(catalogue.sothebys.com/auctions/N08603/pdf_lowres/N08603-catalogue.pdf)