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Accidental and Intentional Red Glaze on Athenian Vases

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Gisela M. A. Richter
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Extract

Professor Wace's many distinguished contributions to archaeology have been in a variety of fields. In all, however, he has kept an eye on the technical side of the problem, which so often illuminates our research. I, therefore, offer this investigation in his honour.

After Mr. Charles F. Binns had in 1929 published his theory of the firing of Athenian vases successively under oxidising, reducing, and re-oxidising conditions it became clear that the glaze on Greek vases turned red or black according to the conditions of the firing. This theory has recently been endorsed and amplified by Mr. Theodor Schumann, a ceramic chemist, who, at the instigation of the well-known archaeologist Mr. Carl Weickert, conducted during the war a series of experiments in the chemical laboratory of the Schütte Akt. Ges. für Tonindustrie in Heisterholz, Westphalia, and at long last successfully imitated the Attic black glaze. Like Binns, he used as the only ingredients for the glaze a clay that contained iron—i.e. red-burning—and a small quantity of alkali (potash or soda). His important new contribution was the peptising of the clay, whereby he eliminated the heavier particles. By using only the fluid made of the smaller and therefore lighter particles of the clay, he obtained a glaze of remarkable thinness, equal in quality and appearance to the Attic one.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 46 , November 1951 , pp. 143 - 150
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1951

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References

1 Binns, and Fraser, , ‘The Genesis of the Greek Black Glaze’, AJA XXXIII (1929), 5 ff.Google Scholar; Richter and Hall, Red-figured Athenian Vases in the Metropolitan Museum, xliii f.; Richter, , Attic Red-Figured Vases (1946), 28 f.Google Scholar

2 Schumann, , Berichte der deutschen keramischen Gesellschaft 23 (1942), 408 ff.Google Scholar, and Forschungen und Fortschritte XIX (1943), 356 ff.; Weickert, AA 1942, 512 ff.; American Ceramic Society Abstracts, 23 [7] (1944), 120; de Jong, Prins and Rijken, , American Ceramic Society Bulletin 1946, 5 ff.Google Scholar; Lane, Greek Pottery, 4 ff.

3 Mr. Weickert and Mr. Schumann pointed out that the Greek application is not a glaze in the technical sense, for it does not contain a sufficient quantity of alkali to make it melt at a high temperature. That I still continue to use the word glaze is simply because there seems to be no better term, since varnish, engobe, semi-glaze, and ‘glaze’ are all either incorrect or cumbrous. And after all, the Greek application, whatever its chemical nature, served physically the same purpose as a modern glaze. Cf. my statement in Archaic Greek Art (1949), 4 f., note 7 (endorsed by Miss Maude Robinson and Miss Marie Farnsworth).

4 Both Miss Farnsworth and Mr. Schumann think that this formula is preferable to that of CO + Fe2O3=CO2 + 2 FeO, for ferrous oxide (FeO) is non-magnetic and unstable, whereas the Greek black glaze and black magnetic oxide of iron (Fe3O4) are magnetic and stable (cf. Farnsworth, , Hesperia IX (1940), 265Google Scholar; Schumann, , Forschungen und Fortschritte IX (1943), 358).Google Scholar

5 On the red ochre wash—which was presumably applied on the whole surface of Attic vases, though it mostly survives only in such relatively protected areas as the undersides of the feet and handles—cf. my Craft of Athenian Pottery (1923), 53 ff., and Attic Red-Figured Vases (1946), 27 f.; also Hussong, , Zur Technik der attischen Gefässkeramik (Heidelberg Diss., 1928), 23.Google Scholar

6 My warm thanks are due to Miss Maude Robinson, potter, and Miss Mary Farnsworth, chemist, for constant help and advice in this research; to Mr. Theodor Schumann, with whom I carried on a lively correspondence during the last years, for his illuminating answers to my questions; and to Miss Lucy Talcott, for sending Mr. Schumann samples of intentional and accidental red glaze from Athens, which greatly assisted his investigations.

7 Acc. no. 23.43. BullMetrMus XVIII (1923), 127; Richter and Milne, Shapes and Names of Athenian Vases, fig. 150. On stacking, cf. Binns, , op. cit., 6, 7Google Scholar; Richter and Hall, op. cit., xlii; Richter, , Attic Red-Figured Vases, 33, 172Google Scholar, notes 121, 122, and my forthcoming CVA fascicule on black-figured kylikes in the Metropolitan Museum.

8 Acc. no. GR. 607. Richter, , Craft, 45, 50Google Scholar, fig. 49. Sir John Beazley now thinks the vase is Campanian, not Attic, but it will serve my purpose, as the red shows up well in the photograph.

9 Such cracks are produced also nowadays, Mr. Schumann informs me, and are due to successive heatings and coolings of the kiln. In his opinion such cracks must have been by far the commonest cause of the red spots on Greek vases, not, as we had thought, contact with other vases; for the fumes of the reducing fire are liable to penetrate through every crevice. Moreover, contact with another vase would take place only in a very limited area, and so would produce only relatively small red spots (see below), not the often extensive red areas observed on Greek vases.

10 E 470. Beazley, ARV 430; Talcott in Vanderpool, , Hesperia XV (1946), 286.Google Scholar

11 This is Mr. Schumann's suggestion.

12 In Richter and Hall, op. cit., xxxviii and note 74; Richter, Attic Red-Figured Vases, 27 f.

13 I may quote from his letter dated April 26,1950: ‘Die beiden Scherben (the ones sent by Miss Talcott) hatten eine sehr hellε, gelbliche Brennfarbe. Ich kann mir denken, dass diese Farbe den griechischen Töpfern neben dem schönen Schwarz nicht gefallen hat. Aus diesem Grunde wird man die Gefässe zunächst mit einer rotbrennenden Engobe überzogen haben, wie es heute in der Keramik noch üblich ist. Erst auf diese Engobe wird man die Tontinte (i.e. the black glaze) aufgemalt haben. Die rote Engobe ist viel gröber als die Tontinte und wird deshalb leichter reoxydiert. Wenn sie dennoch etwas glänzend ist, so wird das Alkali der Tontinte darauf eingewirkt haben unde ine sog. Sinterengobe gebildet haben’.

14 Cf. e.g. Pottier, , MonPiot X (1903), 53 f.Google Scholar; Richter and Hall, op. cit., xliv, note 117; Vanderpool, , Hesperia XV (1946), 285 ff.Google Scholar

15 No. 2044. FR I, 227 ff., pl. 42.

16 No. 2620. FR I, 98 ff., pl. 22; Beazley, op. cit., 17, no. 14.

17 F. 129. Beazley, op. cit., 75, no. 19.

18 P. 2698. Hesperia XV (1946), pl. 35, no. 52.

19 D 6. Beazley, op. cit., 450, no. 1.

20 Cf. Kunze, , AM LIX (1934), 83 ff, pl. VI, no. 1Google Scholar: ‘Die Innenseite der Wandung ist unter den scharf abgesetzten Rand mit hochglänzender siegellackroter Glasur überzogen, die im Gegensatz zur schwarzen Glasur leicht abblättert’.

21 Cf. Richter and Hall, op. cit., xliv.

22 Hesperia XV (1946), 285 ff. It is indeed difficult to think of a glaze containing iron, and therefore red-burning, that would not turn black in the reducing fire (cf. the chemical formula cited above).

23 Ibid., 286. Cf. also Kunze, , AM LIX (1934), 83 ff.Google Scholar According to Dr. Schumann, the fact that the ‘intentional’ red glaze adheres, after all, fairly well to the body shows that the first firing (both oxidising and reducing) must have been at a low temperature.

24 Acc. nos. 74.51.1384 (CP 2028); 74.51.1385 (CP 2029), both from Cyprus (Myres, Handbook of the Cesnola Collection, nos. 1733, 1734); X.21.30. All three kylikes will be published in the forthcoming CVA fascicule on black-figured kylikes in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

25 Acc. no. 30.791. Beazley, op. cit., 456, no. 5; 13.4503.

26 Inv. P. 1265, 2698, 7690, 10359, 1473, 2772, 7267, 8829, 9037, 15952, 16001, 18505, 11049, 19154, 16488, 16753.

27 D 6; 97.10–28.2; 64.10–7.1604; 64.10–7.327; 91.8–6.78; 1901.7–11.3. In the phiale 1901.7–11.3 Mr. Corbett reported that in the red of the bowl (set off against a black offset lip) a small patch had fired black in the exterior and a wide area of the interior had also fired black. An explanation of this must be, according to Mr. Schumann, that the firing was not purely oxidising.

28 Hoppin, , Handbook of Attic Red-Figured Vases I, 153Google Scholar; Beazley, ARV, 82, no. 4.

29 I suspect that this is the case also with the hairs of the mane and tail of the horse on the kylix with intentional red by Psiax in Odessa (Beazley, ARV, 11, no. 31). I saw this cup in 1930 in Leningrad and owe the photograph reproduced in my plate 16, a to the kindness of Miss Peredolski.

30 The bowl and the amphora in New York (Plates 14, a, b, 15, c) are reproduced through the courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum, the volute krater in London (Plate 14, c, d) through the courtesy of B. Ashmole, the kylix in the Louvre (Plate 16, b) through the courtesy of J. Charbonneaux, the pieces in the Agora Museum (Plates 15, a, b, d, 16, c) through the courtesy of L. Talcott, and the kylix in Munich (Plate 17) through the courtesy of H. Diepolder.