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Epoiesen, egrapsen, and the organization of the vase trade
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2013
Extract
The obverse scene of the krater Oxford 526 by the Komaris Painter (Plate VI c) was the subject of J.D. Beazley's first contribution to this journal, an exemplary account from which the relevant passage deserves to be quoted:
The space on A is divided by a pillar. To the left of the pillar is the painter's room. A young man dressed in an exomis and seated on a stool is painting the background of a large bell-krater of the same shape as our vase. His left arm is inside the krater, the rim resting on his thigh, and he is applying a large brush to the lower part. At his side is a stand, supporting the skyphos-shaped vase which contains the black paint. In front of the painter a fellow-workman moves to the right carrying a second krater by both handles. He has lifted it from the ground beside the painter and is carrying it out to put it down beside a third krater which stands on the ground at the extreme right of the picture. Presently the batch will go to the furnace. Beyond the pillar is another workman who moves to the right in the same attitude as the last. In his raised right hand he holds a skyphos by the foot. Perhaps he is taking it to join a batch of vases of the same shape, but more probably he has been sent by the busy painter to fetch more paint … A pleasant rhythm is thus imparted to the scene; the first figure is occupied with both vase and paint; the second with vase; and the third with paint.
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- Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1994
References
1 JHS xxviii (1908) 317, pl. 32; ARV 2 1064/3. Bibliography there, in Paralipomena, 446, and Carpenter, T.H., Beazley addenda (2nd ed., Oxford 1989).Google Scholar Add I. Scheibler, , ‘Formen der Zusammenarbeit in attischen Töpfereien’, in Studien zur alten Geschichte (Lauffer, Festschrift S.) iii (Rome 1986) 785–804, pl. 1.fGoogle Scholar; Sparkes, B.A., Greek pottery: an introduction (Manchester 1991) 18, fig. II.5.Google Scholar I am grateful to Alan W. Johnston for reassuring me (three years ago) that the substance of this note had not been anticipated; he is is no way responsible for the contents, I am indebted also to the students of two advancedlevel classes for their comments, and to the Ashmolean Museum (Dr. M. Vickers) for the photograph.
2 Potter and painter in ancient Athens (London 1946) 17; the work is reprinted in Kurtz, D. (ed.) Greek vases: lectures by Beazley, J.D. (Oxford 1989).Google Scholar See also Richter, G.M.A., The craft of Athenian pottery (New Haven 1923) 74.Google Scholar
3 Loc cit. (n. 1). Some authors adopt this version, taken au pied de la lettre, without (as far as I can see) supporting it with fresh arguments: Philipp, H., Tektonon daidala (Berlin 1968) 84 n. 335, 109 no. 12Google Scholar; Ziomecki, J., Les représentations d'artisans sur les vases attiques (Warsaw 1975) 96–7.Google Scholar
4 For example, Hesperia lxi (1992) pl. 32.d (Louvre G 100, by Euphronios); Hornbostel, W., Aus der Glanzzeit Athens (Hamburg 1986) 114 (cup in private possession).Google Scholar
5 For illustrations of the Caputi hydria (Leningrad Painter, ARV 2 571/73) see JHS lxxxi (1961) 73–5, pls. 6–7 (Green, J.R.). For the Acropolis fragment (Painter of the Louvre Centauromachy, ARV 2 1092/76) see Beazley (n. 2) 14–15, pl. 5.2–3.Google Scholar
6 Beazley (n. 2) 14.
7 Beazley (n. 2) 13.
8 That cheaper materials are attracted to the forms of expensive materials is a commonplace of archaeology, and fancy carries this tendency farther than practice can; so Green's correct observation that the vessels shown on the hydria have metal shapes does not fully warrant his inference that these people are not vase-painters. Noble, J.V., The techniques of painted Attic pottery 1 (London 1966) 54 n. 19Google Scholar, and2 (London 1988) 205 n. 11, adds: ‘The neatly draped clothing … surely is not typical of their daily work clothes.’ Bažant, J., Studies on the use and decoration of Athenian vases (Prague 1981) 13–22 on the ‘Ideality of “Scenes of reality”’ deserves to be widely readGoogle Scholar; Sparkes (n. 1) unfortunately omits it in his bibliography.
9 When fastened at the nape of the neck a chlamys would pull tighter about the body for more warmth. This scheme predominates in the western parts of the Parthenon Frieze (dawn, by the Dipylon gate) giving way gradually, as the day and the cavalcade proceed, to the more casual and smarter manner of wearing the brooch on the shoulder. See Frantz, A. and Robertson, M., The Parthenon Frieze (London 1975) South i–xxii, North xxvi–xlii, West i–xvi, passim.Google Scholar
10 Indeed the fragment, n. 5, may be the only one. Separate but associated pictures of potter (at work) and painter (with customer?) may be suspected on the cup in Karlsruhe, AA (1969) 138–52; Sparkes (n. 1) 14 fig. II.3 and p. 18. For other illustrations see Beazley (n. 2), Ziomecki (n. 3).
11 H. Philipp (n. 3) 83, arguing from the Oxford krater and the Caputi hydria, could envisage independent painters' workshops, an idea rejected by Scheibler (n. 1) 799, on technical grounds (the constant need to transport green ware about the Kerameikos).
12 Johnston, Alan W., Trademarks on Greek vases (Warminster 1979)Google Scholar; see especially p. 45, with n. 13 on painter or potter affinities.
13 A communis opinio that will not be easily shaken: see, e.g., Boardman, J., Athenian black figure vases (London 1974) 64. The ‘export policy’ with which Nikosthenes is sometimes credited could, of course, alternatively be that of individual painters who turned to him as the acknowledged expert on shapes used abroad.Google Scholar
14 Twelve marked vases by Painter N have graffiti of two types: Johnston (n. 12) 46, 208, etc. Four vases by or near the BMN Painter all bear different marks, two with possible Ionian affinities (ibid. 191–92); none of them exists in the work of Painter N.
15 Xenophon, Mem. ii 8.3 is the text usually cited. Note the political effect which Gallant, T.W. ascribes to this ethos, BSA lxxvii (1982) 124.Google Scholar
16 In Christiansen, J. and Melander, T. ed. Proceedings of the 3rd symposium on ancient Greek and related pottery (Copenhagen 1988) 524, W. Rudolph rightly complains of the less than precise archaeological usage.Google Scholar
17 Kiln-sharing is feasible but would be hard to prove; it is accidentally attested for Gaul in Trajan's reign, see Stanfield, J.A. and Simpson, G., Central Gaulish potters (London 1958) p. xxiv.Google Scholar I owe this observation and reference to Refvem, T.. For a survey of recent finds relating to pottery production in Athens, see OJA viii (1989) 321–23Google Scholar, 342 (K.W. Arafat and C.A. Morgan); AAA xviii (1985) 39–50; AR 1988/89, 13.
18 By way of prolegomena: a short working-year helps to account for an awkward discrepancy between output figures for rustic potteries in modem times and tentative (but well-informed) estimates of Athenian vase production, see L. Hannestad in Christiansen and Melander (n. 16) 222–23. Winter is an obvious ‘low’ for the making of ceramics in general: Arnold, D.E., Ceramic theory and cultural process (2nd ed.Cambridge 1988) 61–98Google Scholar; Scheibler, I., Griechische Töpferkunst (Munich 1983) 118Google Scholar; Arafat and Morgan (n. 17) 328; Hemelrijk, J.M. in Rasmussen, T. and Spivey, N. (ed.) Looking at Greek vases (Cambridge 1991) 256.Google Scholar But may not coarse pottery be more affected by winter climate than thin-walled fine ware, causing potters to favour the latter? Cf. Arnold, op. cit., 70. The winter season offered to the Athenian vase-painter a good home-market in the concentration of Dionysiac festivals, and time to work up a stock for the start of the sailing season.
19 See the discussion in this journal, vols, xci (1971) 137–38 (R.M. Cook); xcii (1972) 180–83 (M. Robertson); xciv (1974) 172 (M. Eisman). M. Vickers in vol. cv (1985) 126, provided a salutary reopening of the debate, but his own suggestion is very hard to reconcile with the evidence, and Sparkes’ (n. 1) judicious summing-up, 65–68 with n. 23, shows that the situation is substantially the same as it was twenty years ago.
20 The former point is well brought out by Cook, R.M., Greek painted pottery (2nd ed.London 1972) 256–57Google Scholar; the latter is exemplified by Eisman's (n. 19) guess that signed vases may be identification pieces for shipment. While hard to substantiate, such a theory neatly explains the occurrences of two makers’ names on the same vase, indeed one feels there ought to be more such cases. See Cook (n. 19) 137 with n. 2.