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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2009
The quarter century from 500 to 475 B.C. saw the supreme masters of red-figure vase-painting working in Athens. The matching of design to shape, the clarity of contour in the figures, the vivid sense of life expressed in the compositions were the hallmarks of such painters as the Berlin and Kleophrades Painters who mainly decorated large vases and such painters as Onesimos and the Brygos Painter who specialized in the smaller. It was a time too when the heavy reliance on myth that had been the staple of the sixth-century painters, was being lightened by the increased popularity of scenes from contemporary life: from the life of men there were athletics, parties, religious rituals, and manual labour, from that of women weddings, mourning the dead, and the daily tasks of the household.
I wish to thank the following institutions and their curators for the photographs which accompany this article and for permission to publish them: The Agora Museum, Athens; Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; The Louvre, Paris; The National Museum, Syracuse. I am grateful also to Martin Robertson for reading an earlier draft and for making useful and improving comments, to Dr Donna Kurtz for allowing me access to the Beazley Archive in Oxford, and to the Rev. John Davies, Mr Donald Murray, and Dr John Riley of Southampton University for Near Eastern parallels, literary and archaeological, for the oven.
1. See Boardman Rf, esp. chapter 3.
2. See e.g. Beazley, J. D., The Berlin Painter (Melbourne, 1964), p. 1Google Scholar.
3. Beazley, J. D., Attic Red-figured Vases in American Museums (Cambridge, Mass., 1918), pp. 97–100 (I ouris) and pp. 157–8 (The Euaion Painter)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; id., Greek Vases in Poland (Oxford, 1928), pp. 35–6 and 46–7 (Followers); Richter, G. M. A., Attic Red-Figured Vases, A Survey (New Haven, 1946), pp. 83–5 (Douris) and pp. 106–7 (Followers)Google Scholar; ARV 2, pp. 425–53 (Douris) and pp. 781–806 (Followers); Para, pp. 374–6 and 521 (Douris) and pp. 417–20 and 522 (Followers); Wegner, M., Douris (Münster, 1968)Google Scholar; Kernos, Festschrift for Bakalakis Thessalonike, 1972), pp. 197–202Google Scholar (Philippaki); Boardman, Rf, pp. 137–9Google Scholar with figs. 281–300 (Douris) and p. 195 with figs. 368–75 (Followers).
4. Greek Vases in Poland, p. 35.
5. ibid., p. 47.
6. The Euaion Painter: ARV 2, pp. 789–800 and 1670 and Para, pp. 418–19 and 522; Kernos, pp. 149–52 (Rhomiopoulou); Boardman, Rf, p. 195Google Scholar; and see n. 3.
7. Paris, Louvre CA 2259: ARV 2, p. 797, no. 137 (Atalanta) = Boardman, Rf, fig. 369Google Scholar; Arezzo 142: ARV 2, p. 784, no. 19 (Hyakinthos); Basle Market: Para, p. 417 (Hyakinthos) = Boardman, Rf, fig. 368Google Scholar; Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 01.8097: ARV2, p. 785, no. 2 and Para, p. 418 (Nestor and Euaichme; Aktor and Astyoche).
8. London, British Museum E 86: ARV 2, p. 786, no. 4 (shoemaker); Berlin, Staatliche Museen 2542: ARV 2, p. 803, no. 60 and Para, p. 419 (potter).
9. Washington 136373: ARV2, p. 781, no. 4 and Bareiss 63: ARV2, p. 1670, 4 bis (= Para, p. 417).
10. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art 06.1021.177: ARV 2, p. 797, no. 138. The cup was mended in antiquity; the diameter of the scene is 8.7 cm.
11. E.g. Sambon, A., Vases antiques de terre cuite: Collection Canessa (Paris, 1904), p. 27Google Scholar, no. 86, ‘satyre potier'; Beazley, J. D., Attic Red-figured Vases in American Museums (Cambridge, Mass., 1918), p. 158CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ‘silen at oven’; Richter, G. M. A. and Hall, L. F., Red-figured Athenian Vases in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New Haven, 1936), p. 138Google Scholar, ‘a bearded satyr is stoking the fire in an oven on which his dinner is cooking in a skyphos’; Brommer, F., Satyrspiele (2nd edition, Berlin, 1958), p. 78Google Scholar, no. 107, ‘Ein Silen steht vor einem Ofen’; ARV2, p. 797, no. 138, ‘a satyr cooking’.
12. Fluting a column, Boston 62.613: ARV 2, p. 1701, no. 19 bis, Para, p. 362, no. 19 bis, Manner of the Antiphon Painter; at the furnace with Hephaestus, Caltanisetta inv. 20371: Para, p. 314, no. 39 bis, The Harrow Painter; Antike Kunst 12 (1969)Google Scholar, pls. 13, 1 and 14, 3–4 and fig. 2 (Gempeler); Boardman, Rf, fig. 174Google Scholar; similar (?), Chicago Univ, 23: Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 13 (1972)Google Scholar, pls. 8–9 (Price). For satyrs playing on a potter's wheel see Caskey, L. D. and Beazley, J. D., Attic Vase Paintings in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston 3 (1963), 49 and 93Google Scholar.
13. E.g. Berkeley, University of California Museum of Anthropology 8.4583: ARV 2, p. 286, no. 10 and Para, p. 355; JHS 95 (1975)Google Scholar, pl. 16c (Sparkes). Two satyrs are preparing food.
14. Berlin, Staatliche Museen 25800: ARV 2, p. 797, no. 143. Cf. also for rocks of wandering outline, ARV 2, pp. 789, 6; 793, 77; 794, 95; 799, 15.
15. For the black skyphoi of this type (type A), see Agora 12, pp. 84–5 with pls. 16–17 (the skyphos our painter had in mind was very similar to pl. 16, 342, of the second quarter of the fifth century); for type A skyphoi in red-figure, see Smith, H. R. W., Der Lewismaler (Leipzig, 1939)Google Scholar, passim. For type A skyphoi painted by the followers of Douris, see e.g. ARV 2, p. 785, nos. 1–7 and Para, p. 418; ARV 2, p. 787, no. 1; p. 797, no. 143; p. 799, nos. 13–15 and 2; p. 804, nos. 63–5 and Para, p. 419; ARV 2, p. 806, nos. 1–4. Only one type A skyphos has been attributed to Douris (ARV 2, p. 445, no. 254), and it is a late piece; so the followers are likely to have borrowed the shape from another painter.
16. See Agora 12 for the difference in technique between fine ware and cooking ware.
17. For the stick, compare Bonn 2050–Reading 35.v. 1–3: ARV 2, p. 791, no. 33 The Euaion Painter; for the gesture, compare Boston 91.223: ARV 2, p. 789, no. 1 The Euaion Painter.
18. Bryn Mawr, Bryn Mawr College P–196: ARV 2, p. 791, no. 30, now published in the Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum Bryn Mawr 1 (13), pl. 23 (603) 1. The maximum diameter of the fragment is 14 cm.
19. For a skyphos held aloft, see the Bonn – Reading vase in n. 17.
20. See ‘Kitchen 1’ and ‘Kitchen 2’.
21. Paris, Louvre G 476: ARV 2, p. 782, middle. The diameter of the cup is 25 cm; the diameter of the medallion with meander is 10.9 cm; the maximum preserved length is 16.5 cm.
22. Oxford, Ashmolean Museum 1929.752: ARV 2, p. 451, no. 2 The Oedipus Painter. The diameter of the medallion is 14.4 cm. A fragment (once in Falmouth) by the Akestorides Painter himself is also similar (ARV 2, p. 781, no. 6). For symposium scenes, see Michael Vickers, Greek Symposia (JACT, n.d.).
23. For the lekane, its history, and uses, see Hesperia 27 (1958), 204–5Google Scholar (Amyx); ‘Kitchen 1’, 128–9; Agora 12, pp. 211–16.
24. E.g. Athens, Agora Museum P 21959; Hesperia 22 (1953), pl. 36, 124Google Scholar; P 16520. There is one of the late fifth century in Corinth, C–27–354, and see next note.
25. Athens, Agora Museum P 17822: Sparkes, B. A. and Talcott, L., Pots and Pans of Classical Athens (Princeton, 1958)Google Scholar, fig. 44, below; ‘Kitchen 1’, pl. 5, 6; Agora 12, pl. 97, 2023. The oven is 37.5 cm tall.
26. Amyx, suggested chytropous and lasana in Hesperia, 27 (1958), 230Google Scholar n. 100. Another possibility might be klibanos (or kribanos); cf. Luke 12.28 and Matt. 6.30.
27. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cesnola Collection 2122 (purchased by subscription 1874–76): ‘Kitchen 1’, 137, no. 79. The preserved height is 0.082 cm.
28. Syracuse, National Museum inv. 9957 (from Tomb 413, Megara Hyblaea): ‘Kitchen 2’, 163, no. 79A and pl. 30. 4.
29. Paris, Louvre B 302: ‘Kitchen 1’, 137, no. 77; Archäologischer Anzeiger 1969, 147, fig. 6 (Metzler). The height is 0.082 cm. Metzler interprets this figurine as a female potter at work and compares (p. 146 n. 54) the Syracuse figurine (see previous note). In view of the cakes inside both that and the Cypriot terracotta (n. 27), a baking subject seems more likely.
30. See Dalman, G., Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina 4 (Gütersloh, 1935)Google Scholar, chapter 1; Archaeology 18 (1965), 116Google Scholar, fig. 5 (Amiram and Eitan); Agora 12, p. 233 n. 11; Tools and Tillage 2 (1972–1975), pp. 228–41Google Scholar (Avitsur). For a barrel-shaped cooking stand from Acquarossa, see Opuscula Romana 11 (1976), 39–52Google Scholar (Scheffer); the stand is furnished with handles and may not have been used for bread making.
31. Lloyd, J. A. (ed.), Excavations at Sidi Khrebish, Benghazi (Berenice) I (Supplements to Libya Antigua – V, 1977), p. 122Google Scholar, esp. n. 3.
