The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond features an encyclopedic collection. Opened by the state in 1936, its collections include more than 500 coins. Many are on display in the galleries devoted to Greek and Roman art, providing viewers with a broader context of coins as they relate to art, culture and commerce in the ancient world.

Coins often prove challenging for general museums since many coins often lack specific provenance, or ownership history. Indeed, on Dec. 5, 2023, the museum announced that it had deaccessioned and returned 44 works of ancient art following an investigation by the Antiquities Trafficking Unit of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and the Department of Homeland Security into the global trafficking of looted or stolen antiquities, including the return of three coins to Turkey.

The gods of the ancient Greeks often took human form and vases – with their large, painted surface areas – show how Greek artists developed naturalistic modes to depict people and animals. A display of mainly Greek vases addresses mythology and the Trojan War, sharing the role that myths permeated ancient society. “There could be countless versions of a story, each of which was considered equally true,” including the Trojan War where the Greeks and Trojans battled. “For Homer and later Greeks, the war was a historic events whose heroes and heroines served as models of behavior.”

Myths played a role in civic identity, with city-states placing imagery on their coins that emphasized their mythological roots. Syracusan coins show the water nymph Arethusa who lived in the city’s harbor and coins of Corinth depict the winged steed Pegasus. Coins from the Spartan colony of Taras often depict the city’s founder – Taras – who was rescued from a sea wreck by a dolphin sent by the god Poseidon.

Roman numismatics

The most extensive display of numismatics in the galleries is the display of Roman coins as a mirror of Roman history, titled “The Devil is in the Details.” The gallery’s text reads, “While Roman coins today are valued for their beauty and historic importance, in antiquity they were a means of economic exchange that conveyed messages through the details of their images and inscriptions.”

Largest are the early Roman coins – the bronze as – which originally weighed one Roman pound (about 11.4 ounces) but were later reduced to about two ounces.

The early Roman coinage of circa 280 B.C. through around 140 B.C. bore civic imagery like the personifications of Rome and Victory as women and the twin sons of the god Jupiter. The display shows the relationship of denominations: how two dupondii (4 asses) plus six asses would equal one denarius.

Video screens below provide additional information on coins of the ancient world, the role of coins as storytellers, and allow viewers to learn about each coin displayed. Other panels show the transition to portraits and family imagery through Julius Caesar.

Roman portraiture is explored as several coins are displayed alongside a Roman marble portrait of an unknown man, dated to around 50 B.C. and showing an older, balding man. “Each feature has been carved almost as if in isolation from the rest of the face,” with the museum adding, “Though this portrait seems to represent a specific person, a careful comparison with other such portraits reveals that these images rely on artistic conventions.”

In contrast, a denarius depicting Julius Caesar from around 44 B.C. is shown, depicting the emperor on one side and Venus holding Victory and a scepter on the reverse. The portraiture is set in the context of a portrait style called veristic (from the Lain word for truth) and, “The faces that emerge embody the virtues Romans most admired – hardiness, determination, indifference to outward beauty, uncompromising realism, and pragmatism.”

An exhibit of myth and civic identity in ancient Greek art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts shows a Corinthian stater of 400 to 338 B.C. and a Taranto silver stater of 272 to 235 B.C. that were acquired by the museum more than 40 years ago.

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