It is a great pleasure to be asked to contribute tothe celebrations in honour of Professor HermanBrijder.* I have always had an immense respectand liking for the group of scholars who have

over the last 30 to 40 years made Amsterdamsuch an important centre for the study of Greekarchaeology and Greek pottery in particular. Myown first visit was paid very nearly 30 years agowhen I was welcomed by Herman’s predecessor,Jaap Hemelrijk, who in his generous and enthusi-astic way allowed me free rein with the fragmentsof pottery in the Allard Pierson Museum. I wasalso encouraged and helped immensely by hisyounger colleagues, in particular Herman Brijder,Kees Neeft and Joost Crouwel. Ever since, HermanBrijder’s work has been a source of admirationand inspiration. This offering for Herman gives apersonal overview of some aspects of Athenianpottery in the 6th century BC and of the connec-tions with the craftsmen and products of otherGreek regions, with special emphasis on drinkingcups, in keeping with the work of our celebrand.

In 1950 Tom Dunbabin published a lekanis ofabout 620-615 BC (fig. 1). He had inherited it fromHumfry Payne and kept it at the British School atAthens, but it was sadly lost during the SecondWorld War.1 It was made of Athenian clay, andpresumably by an Athenian potter, but was clear-ly decorated by a Corinthian painter. It comesclose to the Painter of Vatican 73 and the SphinxPainter, and stands on the boundary betweenTransitional and Early Corinthian.2 There wasprobably much more of the sort of movement ofcraftsmen into Athens from Corinth that this piecerepresents. Indeed, such a migration no doubtwas instrumental in the growing Corinthianisationof Attic vase-painting which was to last into thesecond quarter of the 6th century BC.

Soon after the beginning of the 6th century BC,one painter whom we know as the Painter of theDresden Lekanis at Athens moved to Boeotia where

1

From East and West: the inspiration of Athenian potters

Dyfri Williams

Abstract

This paper looks at some of the connections between Athenian potters and painters and their colleagues in otherareas of the Greek world, especially Corinth, Lakonia and East Greece during the 6th century BC. The main focusis on drinking vessels, as befits the honorand of this symposium, and connections between shapes, decorativetechniques and decorative motifs are highlighted. It is argued that such connections could be very complex, butthat one of the important mechanisms, in addition to the trade of pottery, was the movement of potters andpainters both within mainland Greece and around the Mediterranean.

Fig. 1. Attic black-figured lekanis, once in theDunbabin collection, Athens

(from Dunbabin 1950, pl. 17).

we refer to him as the Horse-bird Painter (fig. 2).3His move might have been prompted by any num-ber of personal factors, but it is perhaps an inter-esting reflection on circumstances in Athens at thetime of the supposed Solonic reforms, whichoffered citizenship to foreign craftsmen. For, onecould argue that economic crisis led to a wave ofemigration, a sort of craft-drain, that Solon thensought to reverse by offering foreign craftsmencitizenship.

Given Greek colonial history in Magna Graeciaand Sicily, it is not surprising that Greek pottersshould find a home there. Indeed, Martine Denoy-elle has argued that the Analatos Painter moved inabout 675 BC from Athens to Metapontion in SouthItaly, where he painted a scene of Bellerophonslaying the Chimaera on a local shape.4 CentralItaly, too, had been receptive of immigrant crafts-men much earlier, with pioneering Euboeansbeing followed by Corinthians who from the endof the 8th century BC created locally made ver-

sions of aryballoi, lekythos-oinochoai and oino-choai (fig. 3) with a pale slip that masked the red-dish brown local clay and deliberately imitatedCorinthian potting.5 These Corinthian potters, liketheir Euboean predecessors, soon moved from thecoastal area of Cumae into the Etruscan hinter-land. At the end of the third quarter of the 7th cen-tury BC inland Etruria saw the rise of Etrusco-Corinthian pottery, prompted perhaps by a second,‘Demaratan’ wave of Corinthian potters and othercraftsmen.6 Into this melting pot in Etruria came,it would seem, in the last decade of the 7th centuryBC, an East Greek Middle Wild Goat Painter, per-haps from Miletos: we call him the SwallowPainter.7 He seems to have had no direct artisticprogeny, but did perhaps influence one of thepainters of the Etrusco-Corinthian group, theBearded Siren Painter.8

With these early examples of the apparent mo-bility of ancient Greek potters in mind, we mayturn to Athenian pottery of the 6th century BC,

2

Fig. 2. Boeotian black-figured alabastron, attributedto the Horse-bird Painter, British Museum, GR

1894.10-31.1.

Fig. 3. Cumaean Early Protocorinthian oinochoe,British Museum, GR 1859.2-16.38.

and in particular to the world of black-figureddrinking cups, Herman’s world. Preparing thispaper has been an educational voyage throughthe extraordinarily distilled discussions that Her-man has presented to us in his volumes, the resultof more than thirty years of brilliant, careful scholar-ship. The aspect that I wish to examine first is thesource of the influences that led to the creation ofthe distinctive 6th century BC Athenian cups fromthe Komast cups onwards – specifically, to whatextent they were the product of a local develop-ment or whether there was outside influence,either by way of potters or pots bringing newideas.

This general issue has provoked a great deal ofdiscussion over the years and we should perhapsbegin with the comments made by Payne in 1931.9In talking of the Komast Group of cups (fig. 4),which he was the first to assemble, he describedtheir appearance in Athens as being ‘unquestion-ably under Corinthian influence’. He went on topoint out, however, that in the Corinthian seriesof cups there was a gap between the Late Proto-corinthian cups with offset rims and the MiddleCorinthian form. He suggested that the newCorinthian form ‘was probably influenced by theIonian form’. In 1946, however, François Villardargued against a strong Corinthian influence.10

And it was in response to this that J.D. Beazleywrote some five years later: ‘The kylix of theKomast Group might be thought to have a sort offorerunner in an Attic geometric shape, the shal-low cup with offset lip but without a stem: this,however, seems to have died out long before, andthere does not appear to be any link between thetwo classes. There can be no doubt that the new

shape was borrowed from Corinth.’11 In his veryinteresting paper of 1976, D.A. Jackson revisitedthe late 19th century Panionism and claimed EastGreek influence directly on Attic cups in the secondquarter of the 6th century, invoking the so-calledST cups or Class of Athens 1104 (now referred to byHerman Brijder simply as Plain Komast Cups).12

In his monumental triad of volumes, Brijder hasargued rather for a native Athenian sequencefrom Geometric beginnings. ‘The shape of bothKomast and Siana cups originated in Athens. Inspite of what has been alleged, it was neither bor-rowed from Corinth, nor Laconia, nor from Ionia.’13

He sees the origin of his Pre-Komast cups in AtticLate and Sub-Geometric skyphoi,14 and dividesthem into three Types: A, B and C. Type A he con-siders as purely Attic; Type B he admits mighthave received some East Greek and/or Corinthianinfluence; and Type C he feels may have bor-rowed its decorative scheme from East Greekcups. It is, he goes on to say, ‘the new shape ofthe Oxford Palmette Class [that] is decisive for theorigin of Komast and Siana Cups’.15 Here, we findthe first conical foot in Attic, although he admitsthat this might have been influenced by EastGreek types of cups, such as the so-called Vrouliancups.

From this brief summary of the situation relat-ing to the origins of Komast cup we can readily seethe complexity of the situation. We can also seesome of the potential for archaeological fashionsand prejudices - whether Panionism, Corinthianismor Athenocentricity.

The issue of the conical foot might perhaps bethought to be crucial in understanding the prob-lem. Brijder noted that it first occurs in Athens in

3

Fig. 4. Attic black-figured Komast Cup, attributed to the KY Painter, British Museum, GR 1920.2-16.1.

his Oxford Palmette Class, which he places soonafter 580 BC. The forming of a higher foot and thebeginnings of a conical form are, however, clearlyfirst seen in the East Greek ambit. Udo Schlotzhau-er’s recent work on the South Ionian ‘Knickrand-schale’ (cup with everted rim, otherwise knownas Ionian bowls), especially the Milesian series,suggests that the higher foot was already appear-ing before the middle of the 7th century BC.16 Thenew series of Milesian cups of the later 7th cen-tury BC and beginning of the 6th, however, seemsto show a bewildering variety of forms, with con-ical foot cups running in parallel with low wide-footed cups.

We should note, in passing, that the growinglist of later, finely decorated cups made at Miletosreveals the increasing importance of that city inthe story of 6th century BC pottery. The decorationof the interior of the rim of a fragment from earlyin that century matches a Middle Corinthian cupin Athens.17 Other later Milesian pieces showricher decoration and perhaps even a mixing ofWild Goat with Fikellura styles. The feet of thesedecorated pieces, however, all seem to be low,and we are perhaps seeing influence fromCorinth, rather than vice versa.

Lakonian potters were also to produce a seriesof related cups. Conrad Stibbe has argued for acontinuous, native development of the Lakoniancup from a footless skyphoid vessel to the high-stemmed cup.18 The decorated cups suggest thislocal origin, but perhaps with growing influencefrom Corinth. Again, however, the problem is thelack of a conical foot, although we do see it in therepertoire via the plain cups, which begin around600 BC: again they seem to betray East Greekinfluence.19

With the creation of the Attic Komast cup,what we have perhaps been observing then is acomplex web of influences, both East Greek andCorinthian from the last decades of the 7th centuryBC. There were a great many East Greek importsto Corinth, especially in the last quarter of the 7th

century BC, including Ionian bowls.20 We alsohear from Herodotos of friendly relations betweenCorinth and Miletos during the time of Perianderand Thrasyboulos.21 As a result, I suspect that theAthenian Komast cup does indeed owe much toboth Corinth and East Greece, but the process ofadoption and adaption was by no means a simpleone. It is quite possible that Corinth was both theorigin of some ideas and the purveyor or trans-mitter of those from the East.

Athens continued to look to Corinth throughoutthe first quarter of the 6th century BC for many of

its ideas. To underline this, we should mention afragment from Naukratis (fig. 5).22 It carries thetypical Middle Corinthian stepped decoration onthe outside of the lip, and a typically Corinthiancomplex of red and reserved lines inside; there isalso a trace of a second frieze below the row ofanimals, as on several Corinthian cups.23 Thisfragment has been attributed to the KX Painter.No other Komast cups have been preserved fromhis hand, but the shape’s earliest scions are by histhree close followers (the Painter of New York22.139.22, the Painter of Copenhagen 103 and theBeziers Komast Painter).24 A second, recently pub-lished, fragment from an unusual and rather largecup, excavated this time in Corinth, is by the KYPainter, the most prolific of the Komast Cup paint-ers.25 It is an oddity too, having a fully MiddleCorinthian decorative scheme - triple net patternon the rim, a narrative scene below and tonguepattern inside.

Brijder dates the KX Painter’s Naukratis frag-ment to 585-580 BC and calls it Pre-Komast; heplaces the KY Painter’s Corinth fragment rathervaguely before 570 BC. I rather feel that the KXPainter’s fragment is not perhaps so early, but aswith his successor’s exceptional piece he wasusing external inspiration in the search for some-thing different. Both pieces are grand and exper-imental, but neither was to prove ultimately influ-ential for the development of the Attic cup.

A group of spectacular but fragmentary cups,all by the KX Painter, excavated in the Heraion atSamos, have recently been fully published byboth Brijder and Bettina Kreuzer.26 The best pre-served of this group reveals a high rim and twofriezes of decoration: both shape and decorative

4

Fig. 5. Attic black-figured cup fragment, attributed tothe KX Painter, British Museum GR 1886.4-1.1061

and 1914.3-17.10 (from Naukratis).

scheme may be matched on a number of MiddleCorinthian cups.27 The group, however, containsan even more spectacular piece, similarly deco-rated in the Corinthian tradition, but in the shapeof two cups, one set inside the other, the ‘lower’one covering part of the decoration of the ‘upper’.This conceit is best matched in East Greece by thetriple cup dedicated by Rhoikos to Aphrodite atNaukratis, six- and five-fold cups from Samos,and a number of doubles from Italy.28 Indeed,Brijder has argued convincingly that the profilesof all the cups in the Samos group come closer toEast Greek models than to Corinthian ones.29 TheKX Painter’s double cup has, inside, the band oftongues at the rim of the upper cup, but with thelower cup the painter has decided, perhaps as asurprise, to introduce a frieze of running dogs.Friezes of dogs were common on Protocorinthianand Transitional vases, but not on later Corinthianvessels. We do, however, find them on a couple ofother pieces by the KX Painter from Samos, ahydria and a bowl.30 They did, of course, remainpopular on East Greek fabrics, and one cannothelp wondering if the KX Painter might not havedecided to employ the motif on pieces that wereperhaps specially made for an East Greek market.31

The decoration of the inside of the offset rim withanimals is known from one Attic Siana cup, exca-vated at Saint-Blaise - it has dolphins (and hasbeen dated by Brijder c. 560)32 - but otherwisesuch decoration is most common on East Greekcups and face-kantharoi, where the motif of thedolphin is often found.33 These are, however,later, after the middle of the century, and thefriezes on them may derive, like the shape (atleast of the cup), from Athenian prototypes.

Brijder dated the series of Samos fragments to585-580 BC, but then later down-dated them to580-570. Kreuzer, at the same time, has argued forthem being late works of the KX Painter and setthem around 575-570 BC. We may do best to thinkof all these special cups (from Naukratis, Corinthand Samos), whether strongly Corinthian orstrongly East Greek, as not too widely separatedin date. Their potters may all be searching forsomething new, which was in due course, how-ever, to be the Siana Cup.

Most authorities, including Beazley, Villard andBrijder, have seen the Siana Cup develop out ofthe Komast Cup, but Stibbe has argued that theLakonian series had an influence on the Atticshape, which he suggests appears slightly later.34

Quite where the idea of the overlap scheme forthe decoration came from is not clear. Beazley’scomment that it was ‘an error of taste’, may seem

harsh but it is not unreasonable (one might notethat at least in the Nikosthenic overlap amphoraethe horizontal ribs were not highlighted withpaint).35

The third Attic cup type, the Little Master Cup,is regularly seen as developing from the so-calledGordion cups. Gordion Cups have been divided byBrijder into two groups: Type A, the Ergotimos-Kleitias group, which he places in the late 560s BC;36

and Type B, the nearly standard lip-cup shape ofthe potter Sondros, belonging to the decade 560-550 BC. There is again a strong East Greek flavourto the first Gordion Cups, in the form of the lipand the decorative scheme.37

Next should have come the Little Master Cups,but there is as yet no fundamental study to matchBrijder’s volumes. There is, indeed, a great needfor such a work, one that also takes account of theEast Greek series of Little Master cups, as well asLakonian cups, so that we can begin to under-stand the crossing relationships between all threeregions. Work at Miletos is beginning to suggestthat some of the East Greek Little Master cupswere actually made there, as well as perhaps onSamos, the perceived traditional home. The latestexamples of such cups are extremely fine. Clayanalysis may play its part, but style and shapestudies will remain absolutely vital. It would notperhaps be a surprise if some Little Master cupsthought Attic might turn out to be East Greek, ormore probably that they were created by the occa-sional East Greek immigrant to Athens. There arealso clearly complications to be sorted out withLakonian - one thinks, for example, of a group offragments from Aigina. Emil Kunze was the firstto publish them and suggested that, although theyrecalled Lakonian, they were really East Greek;Wassiliki Felten later published them as Lakonian;but Stibbe held that they are not Lakonian andshould be East Greek.38

The connections between Attic, East Greek andLakonian pottery are important for our under-standing of the styles and chronology of all thesefabrics. Some motifs seem to occur in East Greekbefore they do in Attic, but the chronology is notalways clear. For example, a frieze of crescents isa common motif on Fikellura pottery - we find itfirst in the works of the Altenburg Painter, per-haps as early as 560 BC.39 It occurs at roughly thesame time on Attic pieces by or associated withNearchos, including his famous aryballos, a groupof three fragmentary skyphoi from the Sanctuaryof the Nymphs in Athens and a plate in Copenha-gen (fig. 6) published by Nassi Malagardis.40 Themotif, in fact, seems to appear first as a circular

5

frieze, around a central whirligig, on a group ofWild Goat style terracotta shields from Buruncuk(Larissa?).41 Perhaps the frieze motif developedfrom the whirligig in just such a context and fash-

ion. At Athens, the motif seems only to appear inone workshop in Athens and we may well be cor-rect in thinking that it was Nearchos who bor-rowed the idea from the work of an Ionian painter.

The Copenhagen plate, however, also has in itscentre a rosette with additional petals ringing it(fig. 6).42 This motif is first found on Attic potteryin the centre of a rimmed bowl near the GorgonPainter and on a fragment by the KX Painter fromSamos.43 It is also taken up in East Greece on aLittle Master cup, which Brian Shefton studiedwith his usual, wide-ranging enthusiasm.44 Henoted two more occurrences of it in the centre oftwo Milesian cups (one from Samos, the otherfrom Histria).45 Friezes of such rosettes linked toform a net-pattern is a motif well known from theFikellura aryballos in Bochum (fig. 7).46 Sheftongathered a number of vases with such decoration,mostly Milesian, but perhaps also Samian, andsuggested that the motif, originally Near Easternand propagated by Phoenicians, achieved some-thing of a vogue in East Greece around the middleof the 6th century BC.47 He noted only one exam-ple on a later 6th century BC Athenian vase, wherehe saw it as a direct borrowing. He ended by con-cluding that both motifs, single special rosette andcomplex net, were East Greek creations. This may,however, be to simplify the mechanics of exchange,for, on current evidence, although the complete netpattern clearly occurs on East Greek pottery beforeAthenian, the cut-down rosette appears first inAthens and would seem to be imitated only laterin East Greece.

This brief survey of Attic cup shapes and theinfluences on them can now be widened out toinclude other drinking shapes and other fabricsduring the early 6th century BC. We have hadcause to mention frequently Milesian and Samianmaterial, but another important fabric was that ofChios. The most common and typical Chian ves-sel is the chalice. Its history and development iswell known since Boardman’s work on Chios.48

The shape can be traced from the late 8th centuryBC, when it was a high-rimmed skyphos. The con-ical foot and the more conical shape to the bowldeveloped in the last 3rd of the 7th century BC.

The earliest Attic version seems to be a fragmentin Hamburg by the Nettos Painter, but we canmake out little of the shape.49 The Anagyrus Painterhas left us an example and several fragmentsfrom the Group of the Dresden Lekanis Painterhave been found in the Agora.50 In some of theseexamples the shape was probably a mixture of thelekanis with the chalice and the influence fromChian pottery was perhaps rather casual. It is

6

Fig. 6. Attic black-figured plate, associated withNearchos, Copenhagen National Museum ABc 1017

(photo Museum).

Fig. 7. Fikellura aryballos, Bochum inv. S 1030(photo Museum).

Sophilos, however, who has left us the clearest linkbetween the two fabrics and indicates a deliberateborrowing.51 His chalice in the National Museumin Athens shows no apparent stylistic connectionand one must assume that he (or his potter) wasinfluenced by an imported Chian chalice. Indeed,fragments of four Chian chalices have been foundon the Acropolis and six pieces in the Agora (twoof them are small, well-preserved late 7th-centuryexamples).52

One important Chian workshop that we maycall the Sphinx and Lion Workshop, however, doesnot seem to have produced chalices, whether largeor small, but instead a series of stemmed skyphos-like vases with lids.53 As with the chalices, itssmaller scions were presumably used as drinkingvessels, the larger, such as the example from Pitane,as kraters54 This general sort of shape is knownfrom Athens from as far back as the Late Geometricperiod - it is not known in Corinth.55 The greatflowering of the shape, however, seems to havebeen from the time of the beginnings of black-fig-ure in the works of the Chimaera-Nettos Painter.The shape had disappeared at Athens by the endof the first quarter of the 6th century BC, the lastexamples being by Sophilos and from the Groupof the Dresden Lekanis.56 It is quite possible thatthe Chian shape was inspired by Athenian exam-ples exported eastwards – the opposite current tothat of the chalice.57

At some point towards the end of the first quar-ter of the 6th century BC some Chian potters prob-

ably moved to the region of Thrace, perhaps to theChian colony of Maroneia.58 As a counterpoint tothis migration we may note the possibility that aLakonian potter moved to Chios some decadeslater.59 This is the black-figure Sirens Painter, towhose hand we may attribute two cups of Lakoni-an type60 and decoration and two or more chalicesalso painted in a Lakonian style. One of thesechalices, made up of fragments in London andCambridge (fig. 8), has a wing-footed figure flyingover a siren that recalls Lakonian cups with wingeddaemons and sirens flying round symposiumscenes.61 Similar winged demons appear on Fikel-lura pottery, but any connections between themand those on Lakonian vases, or the Chian ver-sions, had perhaps best await the publication ofthe extraordinary new finds at Miletos, whichmay well strengthen the idea of a connection withAphrodite.62

We may now leave, at least for a moment, theworlds of East Greek and Lakonian pottery andturn back to Athens and briefly examine some ofthe developments in the last decades of the 6th

century BC, concentrating on the figure of Nikos-thenes, so ably studied by another Amsterdamman, Vincent Tosto.63 Nikosthenes’ acute com-mercial sense is well known, especially throughhis production of an Attic, decorated version ofthe Etruscan bucchero amphora and kyathos. Wenaturally wonder what processes lay behind suchan achievement. Did Nikosthenes travel to Etruria;was his family in some way involved in the tradewith that region; was an Etruscan part of a tradingcooperative with an Athenian; did an Etruscanpotter move to Athens, or did Nikosthenes relysimply on speculative imitation of chance imports?Of all these the chance import seems the leastlikely, for Nikosthenes ability to market so suc-cessfully two shapes to one market smacks ofdeliberate entrepreneurial skills.

I have argued elsewhere, as others have before,that Nikosthenes is a particularly good candidatefor the introduction of the white-ground tech-nique in Athens.64 The other main candidate, thepotter Andokides, although he did experimentwith the technique, both early and later in hiscareer, was never a master of it the way thatNikosthenes was from the first.65 Furthermore,Nikosthenes was an imaginative and resourcefulpotter and alongside his Etruscan operation oneshould set the appearance of East Greek featuresin his choice of decoration and subsidiary pattern-work, for the use of a white slip had a long andcontinuous history in the east. One thinks per-haps of his series of fantastic cups, some with

7

Fig. 8. Chian black-figured chalice fragments,attributed to the Sirens Painter, British Museum

GR 1888.6-1.550b, 1924.12-1.352, and CambridgeGR 97.1894, joining (from Naukratis).

free-field zones, others with a multitude of lines -all pointing to East Greece. Indeed, the decorativepattern-work under the handles of the pair ofwhite-ground oinochoai in the Louvre is very rem-iniscent of Fikellura pattern work.66 Perhaps, then,Nikosthenes may also have been influenced byEast Greek potters in his introduction of the whiteslip.

We might take this East Greek connection fur-ther perhaps by noting the three phialai thatNikosthenes signed.67 Their minimalist decorativescheme matches well the East Greek or Lydianplain silver vessels, such as an example fromUshak.68 He also produced a shallow dinos, whichhe signed as potter and decorated, similarly, onlywith tongues on the shoulder and frieze of ivyleaves on the top of the rim.69 This piece goeswith a small group of dinoi of the same unusual,shallow shape - two with ships inside the rim andone with leaping dolphins.70 These dinoi are ofthe same shape as an East Greek piece in a Swisscollection, which also uses the decorative motif ofleaping dolphins.71 Those inside and outside theEast Greek dinos are, indeed, by the same handas an East Greek Little Master cup, also in Vienna.72

It would seem very likely that Niksothenes waslooking to the East Greek world when he intro-duced this version of the dinos.73

I rather suspect, as others have done, thatNikosthenes was also the potter to pioneer therather gaudy Six technique, especially since it isclosely connected with Etruscan shapes, kyathoiand an amphora.74 Among the Six technique vases,the series of phialai is of particular interest, espe-cially in the light of the plain Nikosthenic versions.They are decorated with a riot of coloured deco-ration, occasionally with some incision work -some are figured, many floral. In many ways theymake one think of Chian phialai, as John Board-man has pointed out, but the Chian pieces are nodoubt earlier, although some very late Chian ves-sels do have vivid interior decoration.75 Could itbe that the polychromatic Six technique was some-how influenced by East Greek pottery, as well asEtruscan - Nikosthenes again looking east, as wellas west?

These late 6th century coloured phialai bear fur-ther examination. They are regularly consideredAttic, not least because of the plethora of frag-ments from the Acropolis (there are also a fewfragments from the Athenian Agora).76 As withthe plain Nikosthenic phialai, however, there areagain close parallels with decorated silver phialaifrom East Greece.77 The multi-coloured potteryversions actually have a very wide distribution

and appear to have been favoured dedications insanctuaries - we know them also from, for exam-ple, Eleusis, Eretria, Delos, Archanes on Crete,Kamiros on Rhodes, Miletos, Thymbra in theTroad, Cyrene, and, of course, Etruria.78 The clay,glaze and decorative system of these, however, donot always seem to be Attic and we may wonderif some might be the product of a non-Attic work-shop that found a speciality niche in the market.

A still unpublished group of fragments froman unusual Attic phiale found at Eleusis preservea dedication by Sosimos that would seem to implythat he was also the potter.79 The technique, asdescribed in detail by Beazley, suggests some-thing similar to the East Greek black-polychromescheme as found, for example, on so-called Vrou-lian cups and oinochoai. Three equally ambitiousphialai, one from Delos, one from the Acropolis,and one from Capua, are also clearly Attic.80 TheDelos phiale is decorated with a frieze of inter-laced buds and a rim pattern of spirals. The formof the bud chain, complete with lobe and dot fillers,matches well Nikosthenic design, as on one of hissigned amphorae and on a pyxis lid that has veryplausibly been linked with his workshop.81 TheAcropolis example has a frieze of figures aroundthe omphalos and bands on the exterior: bothrecall Nikosthenic work.82 The Capua phiale, in theBritish Museum, has a white slip, Fikellura-likespirals and animals and figures with incision donealmost as if it was imitating reserving Fikellurawork. As with the Delos and Acropolis phialai, wemay not be wrong to suspect the presence of Nikos-thenes, for the little figures recall some of thesmall-scale Nikosthenic figures, especially those onhis free-field cups, which are themselves stronglyinfluenced by East Greek ideas.

With Nikosthenes and the boundaries betweenAttic and East Greek still in mind, we might turnfinally to the group of face-kantharoi. The list of

8

Fig. 9. Attic head/face- kantharos fragment, BritishMuseum GR 1886.4-1.1324 (from Naukratis).

these, once put together as Attic by Beazley, haslong been thought to be East Greek.83 Indeed,Shefton has recently shown that one of the face-kantharoi is clearly by the same hand as an EastGreek Little Master cup in the Getty, whom henames the Osborne House Painter after a cup onthe Isle of Wight.84 Remarkably, however, clayanalysis carried out by Hans Mommsen on one ofBeazley’s list of face-kantharoi, a fragment fromNaukratis in the British Museum (fig. 9), has shownthat it should be Attic.85 The details of this frag-ment do, on closer inspection, prove different tothe East Greek face-kantharoi. The floor of thevessel, as preserved on the Naukratis fragment,seems flatter and more uneven than in the EastGreek series, while on the reserved neck we see athick painted curl of hair. Both these features,however, seem to look back to the much earliersquat face-kantharoi that Udo Schlotzhauer hasnow associated with Miletos rather than the laterelegant face-kantharoi with Ionian Little Masterdecoration. Is this, then, another Nikosthenic imi-tation of an East Greek form?86

This examination of sixth-century BC Greekpottery has highlighted a number of connectionsbetween pottery-making traditions in Athens,Lakonia and East Greece. Although the precisedirection of the currents of such influence is notalways easy to establish, not least because of thevagueness of any absolute chronology, there canbe no doubt as to the fact of such influence andof the craftsmen themselves, as well as their cre-ations, travelling the Mediterranean or what theGreeks thought of as ‘Our Sea’.

NOTES

* I am very grateful to Cornelia Weber Lehmann for pro-viding the photograph of the Fikellura aryballos inBochum, Lucilla Burn for that of the Cambridge Chianfragment, and to Bodil Bundgaard Rasmussen for thatof the Attic plate connected with Nearchos. I shouldalso like to thank Alexandra Villing for her commentson the final text and assistance with the composite imageof the Chian chalice fragments. All photographs of theBritish Museum pieces are courtesy of the Trustees ofthe British Museum.

1 Dunbabin 1950, 193-202. The origin of this piece is notknown, but one wonders if it might have been con-nected with the Anagyrous find, most of which waspurchased by the National Archaeological Museum ofAthens on the advice of Payne and Michael Vlastos.

2 Amyx 1988, 66-70 and 70-73.3 Payne 1931, 202-203; Beazley 1956, 21-23; Boardman 1998,

214. For the British Museum’s example (GR 1894.10-31.1),stolen in the 1960s and recovered in 1998, see nowWilliams 1999, 51 fig. 37b. This alabastron is said to befrom Corinth.

4 Denoyelle 1996, 71-87.

5 For the first Western Greeks see Ridgway 1992; Cold-stream 1994, 47-59; and Ridgway 2000, 179-191. For theCorinthians see Williams 1986, 295-296; Neeft 1987, 59-65; and Ridgway 1992, 62.

6 For Etrusco-Corinthian pottery see Martelli 1987, 23-30;Szilágyi 1992/1998.

7 Cook 1998, 68-70; Boardman 1998, 143 and 220.8 For the Bearded-Siren Painter see Martelli 1987, 25.9 Payne 1931, 310 and cf. 296.10 Villard 1946, 153-180.11 Beazley 1951, 20.12 Jackson 1976, 9; Brijder 1983, 88-94.13 Brijder 1983, 44.14 Brijder 1983, figs 4a-b, and pl. 61.15 Brijder 1983, 48.16 Schlotzhauer 2000, 407-416.17 For this fragment see Schlotzhauer 2000, 408 fig. 293

(placed in phase 4, after 604 BC); Kerschner/Schlotz-hauer 2005, 31 fig. 27, where the fragment is assignedto Miletus SiA (630-610 BC). For the Corinthian cup seePayne 1931, 311 no 988, fig. 153.

18 Stibbe 1972, 14-20; Stibbe 1994b, 57-62.19 Catling/Shipley 1989, 187-200, fig. 1c (= Stibbe 1994b,

185 no G.1).20 Bentz 1982, 126-8; Siegel 1978, 64-217.21 Herodotos 1.18-20 and 5.92.22 British Museum GR 1886.4-1.1061 and 1914.3-17.10:

Beazley 1956, 26, 26; Brijder 1983, 63-64, pl. 1, a.23 E.g. Munich 210: Amyx 1988, 199, no1.24 See Brijder 1983, 67-72.25 See Brownlee 1987, 84-85 (no 17), pl. 14; Brijder 1991,

475, pl. 157, d-e; Brijder 1997, 8 fig. 15.26 Kreuzer 1998b, 24-27, esp. nos 200 and 206; Brijder 1997,

1-15. For a later double cup, signed by the potter Euar-chos, see now Iozzo 2006, 114, 128 and 238 pl. viii 4-6.

27 For the exterior scheme cf. a fragment from Corinth:Weinberg 1943, no 325, pl. 41; the frieze of tonguesinside the lip and the gorgoneion tondo are typical.

28 For the Rhoikos cup see Boardman 1999, 132 fig. 153.See also Brijder 1997, 4, fig. 5 (double; from Vulci), 6 (x6and x5, from Samos).

29 Pipili 2000, 418-419 takes this connection much furtherand goes as far as to imagine that the KX Painter madethem on Samos with imported Athenian clay.

30 Kreuzer 1998b, 72 (hydria) and 12 (bowl).31 Running dogs occur in many East Greek fabrics from

the Middle Wild Goat I period (e.g. Cook 1998 36 fig.8.5) on through the first half of the 6th century. Runningdogs also occur, but rarely, on Lakonian cups, e.g.Stibbe 2004a, 59 pl. 28 (early Hunt Painter) and 225 no12 pl. 56 (Rider Painter).

32 Saint-Blaise 1725: most recently, Brijder 1997, 5 fig. 7.33 See for example, Walter-Karydi 1973, nos 442, 447, 449,

476, 480 and 484.34 Stibbe 1972, 19. The case for the Attic Droop cup being

an imitation of the Lakonian cup called by Stibbe, Dorian,is much clearer: see Stibbe 1994a, 75-82 (especially 77for the chronological priority of Lakonian).

35 Beazley 1951, 21.36 Brijder 2000, 549-557.37 Brijder 2000, 553-4.38 Kunze 1934, 81; Felten 1982a, 19-22, no 112, pl. 8; Stibbe

1972, 46.39 Cook 1998, 79. The motif was imitated in Northern Ionia.

It was also borrowed in Lakonian, see Stibbe 1994a, 81.40 Aryballos (New York 26.49): Beazley 1956, 83, 4.

Skyphoi and plate: Malagardis 2003, 31-34.

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41 Boehlau/Schefold 1942, 85-86, pl. 36, nos 14, 15 and 18. Iam very grateful to Dr Alexandra Villing for this reference.

42 Copenhagen ABc 1017: Malagardis 2003, 31-34, pl. 3.4.43 Beazley 1956, 18, 6. See Shefton 1989, 48 n. 18. For the frg.

from Samos by the KX Painter see Kreuzer 1998b, no 130.44 Shefton 1989, 41-72, with 45 fig. 1e for the Getty cup.45 Shefton 1989, 52.46 Shefton 1989, 53; Kunisch 1996, 51-54.47 Shefton 1989, 53.48 Boardman 1967, 102-103. See also now Lemos 1991, 7-13.49 Beazley 1956, 5.50 Beazley 1956, 21, 2; 1956, 22, 7-9 - see Moore/Pease

Philippides 1986, nos 1442-1444 (note the others in thissection, nos 1441 and 1445-50, including two fragmentsby Lydos nos1446-7, lekanis type lip).

51 Athens NM 995: Beazley 1956, 39, 11; Bakır 1981, pls.55-57.

52 See Moore/Pease Philippides 1986, 58.53 For the Lion and Sphinx Workshop see Williams 2006,

127-132, esp. 129.54 Istanbul, Arch. Mus., from Pitane: Lemos 1991, no 1272.55 See Moore/Pease Philippides 1986, 22-23.56 See Moore/Pease Philippides 1986, 22-23.57 Lemos 1991, 134-135.58 Lemos 1991, 209-22, and 1992, 157-173.59 Williams 2006, 130-131.60 See Stibbe 1994b, 81 for a comparison with his Boreads

Painter.61 Williams 2006, 131 fig. 20.62 For the Lakonian examples see Pipili 1987, 71-76; and

see now Pipili 2000, 416 and Pipili 2006, 76-77.63 Tosto 1999.64 Williams 1982, 26-27. On white-ground see most recently

Mertens 2006, 186-193 and Cohen 2006, 194-238. For com-ments on the possible of Nikosthenes in the inventionof the red-figure technique see Williams 1991, 103-106.

65 Mertens 1977, 33-35: she argues for Andokides.66 Louvre F 116 and 117: Tosto 1999, nos 137-138, pl. 134.67 Tosto 1999, 129, nos 140-142; Jackson 1976, 42.68 Özgen/Öztürk 1996, 95 no 43. Cf. also Bloomington

69.102.2: Oliver 1977, no 2.69 Venice, Ligabue Centre of Research 128: De Min 1998,

148 no 51.70 With ships inside - Rome Villa Giulia 959: Beazley 1956,

279 no 51; CVA Villa Giulia pls. 55, 3 and 56 (Italia 139-140).St Petersburg, Hermitage 1527 (Stephani 86): Morrison/Williams 1968, 103 (attributed to the Antimenes Painter)and pl. 17b; Burow 1989, 26-27, pl. 141. Cf. also the frag-ments, Louvre Cp 11247 and 11248 (CVA Louvre 12, pl.155, 6-10). With dolphins - Vienna AS IV 3620: Isler 1977,18 and pl. 1, 2 and 3, 3; Miller 1997, 139 and figs 38-40.

71 Isler 1977, 15-33, pls 1.1, 2, 3.1-2, 4.72 Vienna 279: Kunze 1934, pl. 8, 1, pl. 9, Beil. 9, 1-2. For

an Etruscan black-figure version of the same shape:Mingazzini 1930, pl. 34.

73 Cf. Burow 1989, 27 and Miller 1997, 139-40.74 On the Six Technique see recently Grossman 1991, and

now Cohen 2006, 72-104. Add the remarkable frag-mentary cup from Old Smyrna with a free-field tondo:Tuna-Nörling 1995, pl. 9 no 145. Herman Brijder also gavea paper at the conference held in connection with the‘Colors of Clay’ exhibition in the J. Paul Getty Museumin June 2006 (papers to be edited by K. Lapatin).

75 For Chian phialai see Boardman 1968, 12-15; on p. 14 hemakes the comparison with the Acropolis phialai frag-ments. For a late fragment see e.g. Boardman 1967, no852, pl. 64.

76 Graef/Langlotz 1909-1933, 101-112, nos 1111-1252, pls.85-89. Agora: Moore/Pease Philippides 1986, nos 1430-1439. There is a fragment from the west slope of theAcropolis in the Allard Pierson Museum, inv. 2425: CVAScheurleer ii pl. 4, 8 (=Pays Bas pl. 86).

77 Two particular decorative schemes seem to have beenimitated: long buds interspersed with short ones at therim (e.g. Oliver 1977, no 3) and more complex floralsinvolving palmettes as well as large buds (e.g. Fol et al.1986, no 2). For the simple scheme in pottery see anunprovenanced example in the British School at Athens(Athens BSA Museum, A50) matched by the fragmentsin Miletos (Z 92.73.22), both of which may not be Attic;for the complex, Athens, Acrop. 1156 (Graef/Langlotz1933, no 1156), which is surely Attic.

78 See Luschey 1939, 148 group viii, and 152; and mostrecently Grossman 1991, 24; but note too now the com-ments in Cohen 2006 on no. 18. Add: Archanes (Crete)- Platonos-Giota 2004, 309 fig. 42; Miletos Z 92.73.22(unpublished); the Thymbra example is in the BritishMuseum, GR 1877.9-30.21 (Vase B 685); Cyrene, Moore1987, no 185.

79 Eleusis 1458 frr.: Beazley 1956, 350; Boardman 1974, 179.Luschey 1939, 109, compared them with a fine fragmentfrom the Acropolis (Graef/Langlotz 1933, no 1156). ForVroulian see Cook 1998, 114-5.

80 Delos Mus. B. 6.108: Dugas 1928, pl. 52, no 640. Athens,Acrop 1250: Graef/Langlotz 1933, 112 no 1250 (for thestripes on the exterior cf. the miniature Swan Groupphialai, e.g. British Museum GR 1888.6-1.568). LondonB 678: Williams 1999, 66 fig. 49; Cohen 2006, 194-5 no50. See also Tosto 1999, 132; he notes two black-figuredphialai of the third quarter of the century.

81 Pyxis lid, Bochum S 1212: Kunisch 1996, 112-116; Tosto1999, 129; Kunisch 2005, pls. 45, 6, and 46. Amphora,Vatican 451: Tosto 1999, no 76

82 Here one might also note a rather small phiale withblack silhouette figures inside that might be Boeotianrather than Attic, Heidelberg S 148: CVA Heidelberg 4,pl. 163, 1-2.

83 Beazley 1929, 40-41; Beazley 1963, 1529 some addenda,but on p. 1697 notes his change of mind with referenceto Kunze’s opinion (cf. Kunze 1934, 122). Walter-Karydi1973, 30-31 (she gives the face-kantharoi all to her RamPainter and asserts that all the unbearded heads are fromthe same mould). See also Biers 1983, 119.

84 Shefton 1989, figs 1 (Getty cup), 12 (Isle of Wight cup),13 (Naukratis fr.), and 14 (Boston face-kantharos). Notehis footnote 58, which lists his attributions; note too hisfootnote 62 which deals with Walter-Karydi’s Ram Painter(of the 520s BC) - he places his painter in the third quarter.

85 British Museum GR 1886.4-1.1324. See Mommsen et al.2006, 70 (provenance group KROP, sample 57). On thisfragment, and other head vases, see also Schlotzhauer2006, 221-248.

86 See also comments in D. Williams, ‘Some thoughts on thepotters and painters of plastic vases before Sotades’, forth-coming in the proceedings of the Getty conference ‘Colorsof Clay’, Malibu June 2006 (to be edited by K. Lapatin).

DEPARTMENT OF GREEK AND ROMAN ANTIQUITIESBRITISH MUSEUMLONDON WC1B 3DGdwilliams@thebritishmuseum.ac.uk

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