Tetradrachm (Coin) Depicting the Goddess Athena (196-187 BCE): Artwork and History

Tetradrachm (Coin) Depicting the Goddess Athena (196-187 BCE) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Greek.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

The front of this coin depicts the goddess Athena Parthenos wearing a triple crested Athenian helmet, the decorative scheme of which includes a flying quadraped, palmettes and scrolls; trimmed with a flat band decorated with sunken squares. The cheek piece of the helmet is raised, revealing loose curls of hair on the goddess's neck and a pendant earring. A decorative border of dots is partially preserved. On the back an owl, another symbol of Athena, stands atop a vessel on its side. The scene is encircled by an olive wreath.

Object facts

• Title: Tetradrachm (Coin) Depicting the Goddess Athena
• Date: 196-187 BCE
• Artist attribution: Greek
• Place of origin: Athens
• Medium: Silver
• Dimensions: Diam.: 3.6 cm (1 7/16 in.)
• Type: Coin
• Department: Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
• Reference number: 1923.1133

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. William Nelson Pelouze

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.