Drachm: Forepart of Lion (obverse); Head of Aphrodite (reverse) (465–449 BCE): Art, History and Details

Drachm: Forepart of Lion (obverse); Head of Aphrodite (reverse) (465–449 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

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.

Object facts

• Title: Drachm: Forepart of Lion (obverse); Head of Aphrodite (reverse)
• Date: 465–449 BCE
• Culture: Greek, minted at Knidos (Karia)
• Type: Coins
• Technique: silver
• Dimensions: Diameter: 1.6 cm (5/8 in.)
• Collection: GR - Greek
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1917.994

A detail from the museum

The forepart of a lion on Knidian coins is thought to represent Apollo.

Collection credit

Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust

Further reading listed by the museum

• "Accessions." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 4, no. 4 (1917): 64-67.
• Cahn, Herbert A. Knidos: die Münzen des sechsten und des fünften Jahrhunderts v. Chr. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1970.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.