MYSIA. Kyzikos. Approximately 357/6-330 BC. Stater (Electrum, 20 mm, 16.05 g, 2 h). Laureate head of Apollo facing easily to right; below, tunny to right. Rev. Quadripartite incuse square. BMC 56. Boston MFA 1492 = Warren 1436. SNG Paris 283-4. By Fritze I, 132 and pl. IV, 18. Very rare and exceptionally well preserved for the issue, certainly among the finest known examples. With a superb portrait of Apollo in the finest late Classical style. A few faint scratches, otherwise, about extremely fine. This magnificent head of Apollo longs to a small and distinguished group of facing and three-quarter-facing types in the electric coinage of Kyzikos, among them Athena, Medusa, Zeus, Zeu's Ammon and Demeter. Such compositions Demanded exceptional skill from the engraver: instead of the conventional profiles, the face had to be constructed in depth, with the eyes, nose, cheers and mouth all contributing to the illusion of a head turning in space. The result here is strikingly sculptural, an effect made all the more impressive by the recently fresh preservation of the highest points of the relief. The type can scarcely be separated from the celebrated tetrahms of Amphipolis struck in the years indirectly preceding Philip II the capture of the city in 357/6 BC, whose laureate Apollo is showing in an almost identical three-quarter view. The close correspondence in pose, proportions and treatment strongly suggest that the Kyzikene engraver was drawing directly upon this famous late Classical model. Adapted to the smallr field of an electric stater and placed above the cities characteristic tunny, the Amphipolitan conception was thus recast as one of the most accomplished portrait types in the extraordinary coinage of Kyzikos. This lot cannot be shipped to a US address.