The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of April 16, 2024
Hemidrachm: Chimaera (obverse); Dove (reverse)
400–323 BCE
(Peloponnesos)
Diameter: 1.7 cm (11/16 in.)
Location: not on view
Did You Know?
The monstrous chimaera adds a goat head and snake-headed tail to the already fearsome lion.Description
The lion, king of the beasts and an animal associated with regal and heroic power, featured prominently on the coinage of many ancient Greek city-states. Artists placed the lion in a variety of poses, sometimes including the whole body, at other times the foreparts or just the head. Although it may once have roamed nearby, for many Greeks the lion was a monster nearly as exotic as the Chimaera, of which it formed a part (together with a goat head and snake-headed tail, as seen on this Sikyonian coin).- ?-1917(Charles T. Seltman, Berkhamsted, England, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)1917-The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
- "Accessions." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 4, no. 4 (1917): 64-67. Mentioned: p. 64 www.jstor.org
- Stories From Storage. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 7-May 16, 2021).
- {{cite web|title=Hemidrachm: Chimaera (obverse); Dove (reverse)|url=false|author=|year=400–323 BCE|access-date=16 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1917.979