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Origins of the Berlin Painter

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Extract

The vase illustrated in pll. Vl–IX(a) and figs, 1 and 2 is a red-figure volute-krater belonging to the Museum of Ethnology and Archaeology at Cambridge, and now deposited on loan at the Fitzwilliam Museum. It came to the Museum of Ethnology and Archaeology in 1886 with the Barrett Collection, but nothing further is known of its history. It was attributed to the Berlin Painter by Professor J. D. Beazley in Attische Vasenmaler, and in his Berliner Maler he classed it among the half-dozen earliest works of the master. Until recently it was severely repainted, but has now been cleaned. Much is missing; the surface is rubbed, and the restorer had not hesitated to plane away the edges of fragments where he could not arrange a clean fit; but it remains a fine and interesting piece.

Modern are: foot, with much of the lower part, including most of the rayed area and lower part of reverse figure; volute of one handle; rim, upper register and most of lower register of neck on obverse; patches on body and reverse neck (evident in photographs). The foot has been restored on the model of a complete volute-krater decorated by the same artist some years later. In the body pictures relief-contour is used rather sparingly, as usual in this artist's work; the small figures on the neck, like those on the London volute-krater, show a much fuller use of it. Thinned glaze is used for the usual inner body-markings; on the youth on B, however, they have all been obliterated, except for the end of one line on the back and of one on the upper arm. On this figure it is also used for drapery folds running from the righthand contour, both in the area about the waist and across the leg.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1950

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References

1 82, no. 75. I have to thank the Museum authorities for permission to publish it.

2 14 and 18, no. 93. It also appears in ARV, 137, no. 99.

3 London, E468; Berliner Maler pl. 29. Sir John Beazle tells me of a splendid new volute-krater by the Berlin Painter in the Villa Giulia: body, on each side a young warrior running; neck, palmettes above, below, A, Herakles, assisted by Athena and by a falling thunderbolt, in combat with Kyknos, at each end chariots; B, athletes. To be dated between the Cambridge and London vases.

4 Body: reveller on A: forehead and nose (enough of parted lips preserved to show that there was none); drapery in front of chest; both sides of upper-arm but not fore-arm; forefinger of right hand (rest of hand not preserved), with right hand edge of kantharos stem and bowl; thumb and forefinger of left hand; shell of lyre and curved ends of frame with cross-bar and supports; upper contour of left foot with toes and ball of foot; toes and lower contour of right foot; back of right thigh; small of back; relief line is also used for the zig-zag fold-ends which partly impinge on the contour, and for the seven lyre-strings, across reserved and black areas alike. Youth on B: whole face and throat; both sides of right upper arm but not of fore-arm; upper edge of forefinger with both sides of stick above it; knuckles, and both sides of stick immediately below; back of neck; drapery on left shoulder; interior of overhang behind back. Remains of neck-figures on A: whole preserved contour of left-hand figure, and of right-hand figure except back of right calf and thigh and perhaps chiton; at least toes and underside of foot of second figure from right. Neck-figures on B: whole preserved contour of left-hand figure except parts of right hand and right shin (both of which may originally have had it) and part oflower edge of spear-shaft towards the head; whole preserved contour of second figure, except back of crest immediately above right arm; whole preserved contour of third figure, except lower edge of spear-head with contiguous part of shaft; whole preserved contour of fourth igure (the relief outlines of the crest-tail continue beyond the point where the reserve stops, as far as the right knee); whole preserved contour of two right-hand figures. In the palmette frieze relief-contour is used throughout except for the inner curls of the volutes.

5 The volute-krater was presumably primarily a metal shape; at least it has no clear development in pottery before the end of the sixth century but crops up in isolated specimens —the Francois Vase and that signed by Nikosthenes (London B364) in Attic and half a dozen in Laconian of the second and third quarters of the century. The vase at Arezzo, decorated by Euphronios, shows a remodelling of the shape on lines which become canonical for pottery. Our vase is very close to it, while our painter's magnificent later piece in London (see above, n. 3) is smartened and refined, Other early examples of the canonical form are a number of late black-figure pieces (Louvre F178, Pottier, pl. 77; Boston 90.153; and one in Taranto, Quagliati, Mus. Tar. p. 55, 1) and a poor red-figure piece that goes with them in New York (Richter and Hall no. 18, pll. 20 and 171; ARV 150, no. α ‘Akin to the Nikoxenos Painter’).

6 AJA L, 86 ff.Google Scholar

7 E164; Form II with picture on shoulder: palaestra; running palmette below picture. BCH 1899, 164 Google ScholarPubMed; JHS 27, 32; Gardiner, Norman, Greek Athletic Sports, 334 Google Scholar, and Athletics in the Ancient World, 166; CV pl. 71, 2 and 74, 1. Not in Beazley; it seems to me by a very incompetent imitator of the Kleophrades Painter's earliest works.

8 See below p. 29 f.

9 e.g., on the Berlin Painter's name vase. On a black figure hydria by the Andokides painter in London (B302; JdI. XXI, pl. 1; ARV 4 no. 26) Dionysos, reclining among satyrs and maenads, holds one handle of a kantharos while Hermes standing by him holds the other. At the farther edge of the picture stands Hephaistos, and I take it that Dionysos is handing Hermes the cup to take to the lame god, for this is surely the party at which Dionysos made Hephaistos drunk in order to get him back to Olympos. Pernier, JdI, XXI, 40 ff.Google Scholar, observing that Dionysos's cushion is a full wine-skin, gives a different explanation.

10 Another is carried by a poor relation of these r.f. revellers, on a black-figure lekythos by the Gela Painter, Haspels, pl. 24, 2 (5) who started his long career in the time and circle of Euthymides. (See also n. 36 below.) A kantharos is carried by a man in a ritual-seeming procession of vessel-bearers on a vase of nearly a hundred years earlier, the Komast Group kotyle in Athens, AM, LXII, pl. 58(a).

11 On a later work of the artist's, a charming hydria in Boulogne (ARV 140, 139) Dionysos, who holds a horn in his right hand and a knotted staff in his left, extends his right forefinger and the first two fingers of this left hand in a similar manner, apparently directing the dance of a maenad who herself wags her right forefinger to admonish the steps of a lion-cub. On his Hearst amphora (ARV, 131, below, no. 3; JHS XLII, 72–3Google Scholar and pl. 2; Berliner Maler pl. 21) the citharode-singer's trainer uses the forefinger of his free right hand to beat time, while the man on the back of his Mont pellier panathenaic (ARV 132, no. 9; JHS XLII, 75 Google Scholar; REA, pl. 1 and p. 187) uses the first two fingers in the same way.

12 ARV 137, no. 100; Berliner Maler 14 and 18, no. 94. I am indebted to Sir John Beazley for the photograph and to Professor Schweitzer for permission to publish it and for very kindly providing the following details: 14·5 cms. high and 24·5 long; many root-marks on the inside and traces of them on the outside which has been cleaned, but none on the breaks, suggesting that these are later than the finding of the vase. From Hauser's collection.

13 cf. Berliner Maler, pl. 15, 1, also the Villa Giulia krater, p. 23 n. 3 above.

14 See CVA fasc. 2, III, lc, pl. 18, 3 left. ARV 137, no. 101 also 124, Kleophrades Painter no. 44, with refs.

15 Cf. the plate in the Robinson Collection, Baltimore CV. ii, pl. 23, 2; ARV 300, no. 3, by the Bryn Mawr Painter, whose curious style owes something to the Berlin Painter.

16 ARV 222, no. 58, with refs.

17 ARV 131, no. 1 Berliner Maler, pl.

18 ARV 134, no. 37; Berliner Maler, pl. 16.

19 ARV 132, no. 5; Berliner Maler, pl. 7, 2.

20 ARV 28, to p no. 2; part, Mus. It. 3, pl. 4; whence FR. ii, 81 an d Hoppin, Euth. F. pl. 23; augmented by new fragments CV ii, pl. 31, 2 and 32. Th e figure is incomplete, but one of the new fragments gives more of it.

21 ARV 140, no. 132 with refs.; Berliner Maler pl. 22, 1, and pp. 12, 14, 15 and 20 no. 129.

22 These photographs and permission to use them I owe to the kindness of Prof. Broneer. ARV 137, no. 88; AJA XXXIV, Prof. Broneer points out that the palmette and lotus frieze on the rim is of unusual elaboration, the lotuses being of two different forms which alternate with one another.

23 ARV 143, no. 184, ‘early’; Berliner Mater 14 and 21, no. 180 (‘sehr früh’).

24 E162; ARV 140, no. 128. I have to thank the Trustees of the British Museu m for permission to publish this vase.

25 695, ARV 140, no. 127. I have to thank Sir John Beazley for the photograph and the University authorities for permission to publish it.

26 VA 61.

27 AV, 471, S. 121–2.

28 BSR XI, 20, note 2.

29 Berliner Maler 14, note 1, 15 and 19, nos. 123 ff.

30 On the third, a fragment in Boston (ARV 139, no. 126), see below pp. 32f., fig. 8.

31 ARV 140, nos. 127 and 128. When this article was already in proof, Sir John Beazley drew my attention to a third hydria of the same shape and scheme of decoration, with Apollo and Herakles struggling for the tripod (Mon. Piot XX, pl, 5, from a drawing. Now in the Gumà Collection, Havana). From a photograph it is clear that it is inseparable from the London and Aberdeen hydriai. There appears to be some repainting, especially on Apollo's body. Under the picture is a running key.

32 ABFL 79, n. 13 and 80.

33 Volute-krater in the Villa Giulia (p. 23 n. 3 above) a work still early in the painter's maturity, though later than anything under discussion here.

34 Hydriai by Euthymides in Bonn (ARV 26, no. 10); Hypsis in Rome (ARV 30, no. 2); and Euphronios in Dresden (ARV 17, no. 11); volute-krater by Euphronios in Arezzo (ARV 16, no. 5); stamnos by Smikros (Louvre G43, ARV 20, below, no. 2).

35 G178; ARV 145, no. π.

36 See above, p. 25 n. 10.

37 P. 23 n. 3 above.

38 The curiously interrupted history of the maeander in archaic Attic vase-painting has been traced by Wedeking (Archaische Vasenornamentik 49 ff.). A running maeander occurs occasionally in works of the Amasis Painter (oinochoe, London B524) and of the painters who worked for Nikosthenes (neck-amphorae in Baltimore and Villa Giulia; volute-krater in London, B364), but the running key is the only form in regular use during the second half of the sixth century, its first rival being the labyrinth introduced by the Pioneers. The earliest kylikes with maeander, as opposed to key or labyrinth, which I know are the Peithinos cup and the Antias cup in Berlin, and the late Euergides Painter's in Athens, none of which can be much if at all before 500. With the overwhelming popularity of the maeander in the next generation the labyrinth becomes rather rare.

39 Berliner Maler 9 f.

40 H. R. W. Smith's distinction from bell-krater.

41 Mon. Piot 35, 69 ff.

42 This vase differs from most of the Berlin Painter's hydriai in the form of the lip, a double bevel, which recurs however on the hydria of black-figure shape in the Vatican (Berliner Maler, pl. 25). I t is found as far as I know only on the following vases:

1. B.f. hydria of b.f. shape in Frankfort (Schaal, pl. 12).

2. R.f. hydria of b.f. shape in the Vatican, by the Berlin Painter (ARV 140, no. 129).

3. R.f. hydria of r.f. shape in Copenhagen, by the Berlin Painter (ARV 140, no. 144).

4. R.f. hydria of r.f. shape in Naples, by the Kleophrades Painter (ARV 126, no. 66; the Vivenzio hydria).

5. R.f. hydria of r.f. shape in London, E174, by the Eucharides Painter (ARV 155, no. 31).

6. R.f. stamnos in London, E439; unattributed, about 490–480 B.C.

7. R.f. dinos in Wiirzburg, by the Achilles Painter (ARV 638, no. 57; Langlotz, pll. 198–9).

8. Oenochoe, shape Vb, in London, old nos. 1035 and 1154 (Durand Collection); black glaze, with r.f. palmette at handle-base.

Nos. 1 and 2 as Beazley points out to me are almost replicas in shape and must be by the same potter. Beazley, , in JHS XXX Google Scholar, pointed out the connection of nos. 4, 6 and 7 and Poulsen (Etr. 10) of nos. 2, 3, 4 and 8. Nos. 1–4 have the same form of foot, which is that normally used in the Berlin Painter's hydriai. I suppose them to be all by the same potter. No. 5 has a disc foot, and does not look like a vase of the same potter. No. 6 has a ring foot, and this and its general proportions recall some of the Kleophrades Painter's stamnoi. It might be by the potter of 1–4. No. 7 is later; it was decorated by a pupil of the Berlin Painter, and there may be some link on the potter's side. Nos. 3 and 4 cannot be long before 480; no. 2 not long after 490; no. 1 might be earlier still. Beazley, publishing an oenochoe of the same type as no. 8 (Oxford, CV pl. 48, 12) observes that the few oenochoai of this shape with figures run through the first half of the fifth century. In nos. I and 5 the whole lip is black; in no. 2 reserved without decoration. In the rest it is reserved with a tongue-pattern on each face of the bevel.

43 See p. 29 n. 30 above; 03.838, ARV 139, no. 126.

44 The old idea persists into the latest archaic period— witness the Syriskos Painter's London hydria (ARV 196, no. 20, with refs.). A slight but pleasant work of the Berlin Painter's maturity, in Madrid (ARV 140, no. 130; BSA 36, pl. 23; CV pl. 13, 1), seems superficially like a reversion to this idea, but there is an immense difference in the character of the composition—spacing of figures, omission of side borders: I should be surprized to learn that the picture on the Boston vase had not been framed.

45 Langlotz 454, pl. 38; ARV 28. The loutrophoros hydria neck, which Langlotz (ibid. 636, pl. 50) ascribes to the same hand, has I think only a superficial resemblance, and has been placed by Beazley in a more appropriate context (ARV 23, bottom). I wonder if the fragment 766 (Langlotz, pl. 67; ARV 24, top) is not actually from the body of the loutrophoros 636. In the same context I should place the plaque 1042 (Langlotz, pl. 82), and see in it a further link with the fine early vases of Myson (ARV 171 f.).

46 Berliner Maler, 15

47 ARV 191, no. 14; JHS XXXII, pl. 2.

48 ARV 382, middle, no. 3; Mon. 10, pl. 22, 1; CV pl. 46, 5, 7 and 8.

49 ARV 140, no. 138; Berliner Maler, pl. 24, 1.

50 ARV 140, no. 136; Berliner Maler, pl. 23, 1; CV 2, pl. 11, 2; 14, 1.

51 ARV 131, no. 4, not from a pointed amphora, but, as Beazley now points out, from a loutrophoros; Buschor, Krododil pl. 3; AJA 1935, pl. 9.

52 ARV 143, no. 184 (p. 28 above).

53 ARV 137, no. 88.

54 ARV 130 ff. nos. 102 (both sides), 106 and 132. Add Herakles in combat on the neck of the Villa Giulia volute krater, p. 23 n. 3 above.

55 ARV 134, no. 39.

56 Our painter had a partiality for Achilles. Apart from this vase (which probably takes with it, as we saw above, the Madrid hydria) he appears in three of the four certain single combats, and almost certainly in the fourth: the young warrior on ARV 138, no. 146, supported by Athena, despatching a bearded opponent is surely Achilles killing Hector. He must also have figured fighting Memmon on the Erlangen loutrophoros (see note 51) and perhaps pursuing Troilos on the lost vase represented by a ghost on the Vienna pelike. Lastly he appears as a child, being presented to Chiron, on the charming stamnos in the Louvre (ARV 138, no. 109). Prologue to these are the stamnos in Palermo (ARV no. 108), closely connected with the last, showing his parent's honeymoon visit to the virtuous centaur, and the Aberdeen hydria with their stormy court ship. The little neck-amphora in Madrid mentioned above gives us the epilogue—Ajax and Odysseus quarrelling over the dead hero's armour.

57 ARV 134 ff. nos. 43, 69, 72 and 119.

58 ARV 22, no. 3; JHS LI, 41, fig. 1. The shield pierced by a spear recurs in Phintias's work on B of the calyx-krater ARV 22, no. 4, there described as ‘Fight at Troy“. Sir John Beazley, who points this out to me, adds that he now accepts Löwy's interpretation of the scene as the wounding of Telephos.

59 The lost Epiktetos, ARV 48, no. 39, a late vase, parallels the unheroic way in which the outermost figures bolt from the field, but Epiktetos's fighters have the excuse of being pitted against Heraldes. There are inscriptions on two of the shields on this cup too, as not uncommonly at this time, but the practice continued later, and the Berlin Painter himself writes καλος on a wine-skin on a rather later vase (ARV 138, no. 111). Other late Epiktetan fights that recall our composition are those on two London cups, E35 (ARV 47, no. 36; again with καλος on a shield) and 1929. 11–11·1. (ARV 47, no. 32).