Athenian Owls--Imitation, Genuine, Or Fake?

And at the same time, I find this is something very hard to quantify and explain.
The obverse on "d" just looks fake, but I can't explain exactly why, and why obverse "b" looks real.
I suspect it boils down to experience looking at the real thing.

So this is a game I play--judging ancient art, even small examples such as on coins--looking for subtle differences between each example, and whether those differences are consistent with an overall style, or whether they suggest a later interpretation. I think it all started when a local Egyptian antiquity museum was exposed for exhibiting fakes, where I would visit their exhibits, trying to determine what was fake--and why. Later, employed by an archaeology text publisher, I got much more opportunity for studying ancient art. Perhaps that explains my detailed analysis of coins like these.

The same analysis can be applied to ancient Greek art. While the best modern interpretations succeed at reproducing most details, they fail at capturing the intent of the original artist, who created within a specific cultural context. Later, when neo-classicism emerged in the early 1800s with Napoleon, artists sought to revive Greek art-- but from their own cultural context, which resulted in a style distinct from authentic ancient art. If there is one defining quality between modern interpretations and the original, it is that Greek revival art has lost some of the "fluidity" seen in the originals. That same loss of fluidity can be seen in comparing coin "b" to copy "d". As you say--this is hard to quantify; it becomes a "gut feeling".

A lot is put on "provenance," which often amounts to a relatively short trail of purchasing history, ultimately hoping the object came out of the ground sometime in the past. However, in the archaeological sense, provenance means documenting an object as uncovered from a specific site, then physically confirming as falling within the proper historical context. How many ancient coins, even the best examples of classical die art, have such a complete history? Not many, and it's quite possible that a mis-attribution made at one point in a coin's sale history becomes a legitimized piece of its "provenance". This is one difference I see between the business of selling ancient coins and the academic rigor of archaeology. As you note--any bit of provenance is better than none, and ultimately the collector must be informed and trust their own knowledge and judgment when buying any coin.

I don't expect many here will read all this pedantry. But, that's my thought process when I look at ancients.

I am new to ancient coins too--and the more I study these, the more I realize there is to to learn. Just with Athenian owls, there is an astonishing amount of variety, due to style and time period--described and catalogued in depth by experts. One could spend their whole life collecting different owls if they wanted to.


Both are genuine, but it's a pretty distinct difference between B and C; both Athena and the owl are heavier in C. I haven't found an explanation--it could simply be due to different die engravers, or year minted.

Sel,
Wow--A PHd in Roman art--that is very impressive! I'll never have her level of knowledge either, only the enjoyment of learning a few things, and having a few ancient coins.