Drachm (Coin) Depicting the Gorgon Medusa (411-356 BCE): Artwork and History

Drachm (Coin) Depicting the Gorgon Medusa (411-356 BCE) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Greek; minted in Neapolis, Greece.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

The ancient city of Neapolis (near modern Kavala, Greece) was famous for its horse-breeding, so they chose to honor the snake-haired Medusa, mother of the miraculous winged horse Pegasus, on the front (obverse) of their coins. On the back (reverse), they depicted the maiden Parthenos, a local moon goddess and patron of the city. These images helped link Neapolis to a set of Greek deities and myths shared by city-states across the Mediterranean.

Object facts

• Title: Drachm (Coin) Depicting the Gorgon Medusa
• Date: 411-356 BCE
• Artist attribution: Greek; minted in Neapolis, Greece
• Place of origin: Kavála
• Medium: Silver
• Dimensions: Diam.: 1.5 cm (5/8 in.)
• Type: Coin
• Department: Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
• Reference number: 1922.4922

Collection credit

Gift of Martin A. Ryerson

View the original

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.