Octadrachm (Coin) Portraying Queen Arsinoe II (After 270 BCE, issued by King Ptolemy II or III): Artwork and History

Octadrachm (Coin) Portraying Queen Arsinoe II (After 270 BCE, issued by King Ptolemy II or III) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Greek, Ptolemaic; probably minted in Alexandria, Egypt.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

Obverse: Head of Arsinoe II wearing stephane and veiled to right, tip of Ammon horn visible below ear Reverse: Double cornucopia full of fruit, bunch of grapes hangs from each side; tied with fringed fillet Queen Arsinoë II, the daughter of Ptolemy I and the sister-goddess-consort of Ptolemy II, is honored on this coin. Under her veil is revealed the ram horn of the Egyptian god Amun, a mark of pharaonic royalty. This coin was issued posthumously.

Object facts

• Title: Octadrachm (Coin) Portraying Queen Arsinoe II
• Date: After 270 BCE, issued by King Ptolemy II or III
• Artist attribution: Greek, Ptolemaic; probably minted in Alexandria, Egypt
• Place of origin: Alexandria
• Medium: Gold
• Dimensions: Diam.: 2.9 cm (1 3/16 in.)
• Type: Coin
• Department: Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
• Reference number: 1922.4934

Collection credit

Gift of Martin A. Ryerson

View the original

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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.