The goddess Athena, for example, features on the coins of Athens. Greek coins were produced for city states and so show the gods that protected those cities. The coins of ancient Greece and Rome are works of art in their own right and provide images of iconic leaders as well as the gods they worshipped. In this article, we explore coinage portraits through different eras. The Renaissance saw a rediscovery of classical forms and technical mastery, laying the foundations for the realistic portraiture we see today. The technical mastery prevalent in ancient Greece and Rome was followed by a more functional approach to portraits in the medieval period. The nature of these portraits changed at the same time as portraiture in other forms of art. The ‘heads’, or obverse, side of a coin has depicted the image of a monarch or ruler for thousands of years. Centuries ago most people would only have seen the face of their leader on a coin.
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