Denarius (Coin) Depicting the Mask of Pan (48 BCE): Artwork and History

Denarius (Coin) Depicting the Mask of Pan (48 BCE) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Roman, minted in Rome.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

The front (obverse) of this coin depicts the mask of the god Pan, facing right. On the back (reverse), the god Jupiter Axur is shown facing left. During the first century BCE, powerful Roman families issued their own coinage, which often bore a personal icon. In this case the moneyer, a member of the Pansa family, used a mask of Pan in reference to the family’s name.

Object facts

• Title: Denarius (Coin) Depicting the Mask of Pan
• Date: 48 BCE
• Artist attribution: Roman, minted in Rome
• Place of origin: Italy
• Medium: Silver
• Dimensions: Diam.: 2 cm (13/16 in.)
• Type: Coin
• Department: Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
• Reference number: 1923.1264

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. William Nelson Pelouze

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Explore the artwork in the Art Institute's collection, including its image and the museum's current catalogue details.

The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.