Painters, Potters, and the Scale of the Attic Vase ...

Painters, Potters, and the Scale of the Attic Vase-Painting Industry Author(s): Philip Sapirstein Source: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 117, No. 4 (October 2013), pp. 493-510 Published by: Archaeological Institute of America Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3764/aja.117.4.0493 . Accessed: 24/09/2013 09:34 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

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article

Painters, Potters, and the Scale of the Attic Vase-Painting Industry philip sapirstein

Abstract

graphic, literary, and ethnographic sources, a general picture has emerged of small independent workshops organized under a lead potter. Athens is a critical source of evidence for ancient pottery production. Its wares were of excellent quality and enjoyed a high demand at export markets. Potters and painters occasionally signed their products, individuating both themselves and their workshops. Furthermore, the rich figural and ornamental decorations on Attic pots of the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.E. have revealed the hands of hundreds of individuals classified by Beazley.2 From the sheer quantity of his painters, scholars at first characterized the Attic vase-painting industry as very large, with workshops staffed by as many as dozens of full-time painters.3 Recent scholarship has challenged this view, arguing instead for relatively small workshops in ancient Athens.4 This article adopts a new approach to the study of Attic pottery production, combining some ethnographic evidence with an analysis of the productivity of individual painters. The most prolific Attic painters worked at remarkably consistent rates, which has important repercussions for the analysis of individual artisans and the industry as a whole. First, we can use this information to examine a painter’s degree of specialization. Second, we can use the productivity of prolific hands to infer the total population making figured vases in Attica. Third, the new approach confirms arguments that there were considerably fewer Attic painters and potters than suggested by the large numbers of artisans designated by Beazley. The resulting

This article investigates the population of the Attic vase-painting industry during the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.E. It reveals a pattern for more than 40 of the most prolific vase painters. Each painter has approximately the same “attribution rate,” the average number of known vases per year of activity. However, several less productive painters have markedly lower attribution rates. An ethnographically based model predicts two primary modes of activity: specialized painters who were hired by master potters, and painters who also regularly threw their own vases. The evidence for potting is assessed for more than 60 painters to determine which of the modes they resemble. Almost every painter with evidence for specialization also has a high attribution rate, whereas low productivity is typical of the painters who spent part of their time potting. In conclusion, the attribution rate is used to argue for some combinations of hands and to examine the production and population of the Attic vase-painting industry as a whole. Fewer than 75 painters and potters were active by the Early Classical acme of the vase-painting industry.*

introduction How many craftsmen were making Attic pottery in the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.E.? The question has often been raised in studies on the organization of the pottery industry and trade. Although traces of individual pottery workshops have been excavated, a broader view of the industry is difficult to attain from this limited evidence. Potters in antiquity were generally of low social status, even if highly skilled, and they appear only sporadically in ancient literature and records.1 From the synthesis of archaeological, epi-

terized as “factories” (Salmon 1984, 101–16, 159–64; Benson 1985). 4 Scheibler 1983, 110–19; 1984; 1986, 800–3; Arafat and Morgan 1989, 323–27, 338; Williams 1995, 159; Stissi 2002, 19–21, 178–79. In the following pages, I speak of Attic painters as if they were all male. The industry must have been dominated by males, although some painters and potters were female (Scheibler 1983, 111–12; 1984, 130; Arnold 1985, 226–29; Williams 2009, 308–9).

* A free, downloadable appendix with an additional figure can be found under this article’s abstract on the AJA website (www.ajaonline.org). All figures are my own. 1 Richter 1923, 98–100; Scheibler 1983, 71–3; Arnold 1985, 196–98; Noble 1988, 12–14; Arafat and Morgan 1989, 312; Vickers and Gill 1994, 95–7; Crielaard 1999, 55; Stissi 2002. 2 ABV, ARV 2, Paralipomena. Beazley greatly expanded the corpus of hands assembled by Haspels (ABL) and others. 3 See Webster (1972) and Stissi (2002, 16, 19) for further references. Archaic Corinthian workshops were even charac-

American Journal of Archaeology 117 (2013) 493–510

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An innovative paper published by Cook more than 50 years ago adopted a statistical approach to determine the population and productivity of craftsmen in fifth-century Athens.5 One of Cook’s methods is of interest here. He began with a rough estimate of the number of vases published at the time—about 40,000, equivalent to 260 vases per year over the 150-year span of their production. Assuming that a “typical” vase painter would have contributed three or four of these works annually, Cook deduced that at least 70 painters must have been active simultaneously. Adding potters and assistants, the resulting cohort of about 400–500 craftsmen would put Athens on par with nucleated workshop industries in the ethnographic record. Despite having gained wide acceptance,6 his calculations are flawed by assumptions about the industry, which are discussed in online appendix 1 on the AJA website.7 Being more concerned with what fraction of vases from antiquity had been preserved, Cook did not explain how he determined the figure of three or four annual vases per painter. A critical concept for the current article concerns this figure, the attribution rate—that is, the average number of extant works attributed to a painter during a year of his career. This number can be determined more accurately than the total number of vases a painter originally decorated.8 For example, according to a recent monograph the cup painter Douris has about 250 vases spanning a career of about 35 years.9 He has 7.1 works per year, or 8.1 including associated works that might not be his own. His contemporary Epiktetos has 143 vases from his primary period of activity of 15–20 years, equivalent to about 8 vases per year.10 According to a recent dissertation, Hermonax has 213 attributions and 21 works in his manner over a 25-year span, equivalent to 8.5 or 9.4 works per year depending on whether the works in his manner are included.11 These three painters are at least twice as

productive as Cook’s estimate. They also have a relatively consistent attribution rate. This study examines as many painters as possible to test whether this pattern holds generally. It relies on a formal methodology to arrive at an unbiased estimate of each painter’s attribution rate.12 First, although recent monographs on individual painters are the ideal references for tabulating painters’ attributions, Beazley’s lists are the only source for many other painters. To standardize the tallies, all attributions published through 2011 from sources such as the CVA are included. Second, career lengths can only be estimated. The focus here is establishing the period of major activity for the painter, when he has significant numbers of dated works. The chronological precision is 5 years, or 2.5 years when there is some indication that a painter was active a short time beyond a particular 5-year interval. Third, most painters have some uncertainty in their attributions, especially the pieces that Beazley and other scholars separated as “near” or in the “manner of” the painter. All vases that may have been by the painter himself are tallied here as “uncertain” works, but only half are counted. Fourth, it must be assumed at the outset that the vases examined by Beazley represent an essentially randomized corpus, which does not greatly favor certain painters over others. However, a few contexts in Athens and Thasos that produced hundreds of thousands of Attic sherds have a clear potential for overrepresenting the work of the painters associated with the deposits. These sherds are discounted in the final tally. As demonstrated in online appendix 1,13 such adjustments are small and have no significant effect on the results. Because of the imprecision in the chronology, the study concentrates on the painters with the longest careers. Those who worked fewer than 15 years have been excluded because of the large potential for error. Figure 1 presents every Attic painter with more than 150 attributions—equivalent to a career of about 20 years or more, assuming each painter left us about 8 vases per year. Figure 2 has painters with 100–150 attributions but excludes some hands with attribution problems or imprecise chronology.

Cook 1959, 119. E.g., Kluwe 1967, 470–71; Snodgrass 1980, 127–28; MacDonald 1981, 167; Paul 1983, 84. Hannestad (1988, 223) and Stissi (2002, 30–4) are skeptical. 7 See the section “The Population of Attic Painters and the Recovery Ratio” in online appx. 1 (www.ajaonline.org). 8 Stissi (2002, 31–2, table 3.5) tabulates total annual productivity for some painters, but the results are blurred when one factors in an estimate of how many ancient pots were lost for every attributed vase that has survived. 9 Buitron-Oliver 1995. For a bibliography on Douris and all

the painters referenced later in this text, see online appx. 2. 10 However, his attribution rate drops to 6.8 or lower if we extend his career another decade to accommodate a small number of late works. The end date of his career is controversial. 11 Benson 1999; see also online appx. 2. 12 The methodology is presented in detail in the sections “Assumptions,” “Tallying System,” “Preservation Bias,” and “Chronology” in online appx. 1. 13 See the section “Statistical Results” in online appx. 1. For tabulations of attributions from unusually rich contexts, see online fig. 1 therein.

picture is of a radically smaller pottery industry than previously believed.

the attribution rate of attic painters

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the attic vase-painting industry

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Names of black-figure specialists are in bold; red-figure specialists are in italics; names with an asterisk have had at least 10 attributions removed because of potential preservation bias. Shaded rows indicate tallies derived from Beazley's lists (ABV, ARV 2, Paralipomena) because no recent catalogues are available for the painter. Numbers in the “Career” column indicate slightly before () dates (2.5 years for calculations) or uncertain (~) dates. Attribution rates more than 10% above or below the mean are marked with double asterisks; triple asterisks represent extreme outliers. The horizontal line divides the archaic from the classical painters; attributions from the Athenian Acropolis have been adjusted for the archaic painters.

Fig. 1. Prolific Attic vase painters (more than 150 attributions). Uncertain attributions are those that might belong to the painter, using Beazley’s designations such as “perhaps,” “near,” and occasionally “manner of.” Only half of the uncertain attributions have been counted in the adjusted total. Works likely to belong to imitators are excluded. When available, recent monographs or dissertations are the basis for the totals. References for the tallies and chronology are presented in online appendix 2.


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Names of black-figure specialists are in bold; red-figure specialists are in italics; names with an asterisk have had at least 10 attributions removed because of potential preservation bias. Shaded rows indicate tallies derived from Beazley's lists (ABV, ARV 2, Paralipomena) because no recent catalogues are available for the painter. Numbers in the “Career” column indicate slightly before () dates (2.5 years for calculations) or uncertain (~) dates. Attribution rates more than 10% above or below the mean are marked with double asterisks; triple asterisks represent extreme outliers. The horizontal line divides the archaic from the classical painters; attributions from the Athenian Acropolis have been adjusted for the archaic painters. Fig. 2. Moderately productive Attic vase painters (100–150 attributions). Uncertain attributions are those that might belong to the painter, using Beazley’s designations such as “perhaps,” “near,” and occasionally “manner of.” Only half of the uncertain attributions have been counted in the adjusted total. Works likely to belong to imitators are excluded. When available, recent monographs or dissertations are the basis for the totals. References for the tallies and chronology are presented in online appendix 2.


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There are 36 Attic painters with at least 150 vases (see fig. 1). Excluding one outlier, Makron, they have from 6.8 to 9.5 vases attributed per year of their careers, on average 8.2. The attribution rates across the group are surprisingly homogenous. Overall, the number of years an Attic painter worked has a strong linear correlation to his number of vases (fig. 3).14 The pattern begins to decay for the painters in figure 2, who as a group have fewer attributions per year. The relative imprecision of the data must contribute some error: fewer works mean shorter careers and thus a lower accuracy in the attribution rate. However, even after 12 painters with exceptionally low annual rates are excluded, the remaining painters still have only 7.3 works per year on average. Several factors contribute to this generally low productivity. First, many of these hands are less studied than those in figure 1, and some of their attributions may have been missed. Second, several of these painters are difficult to distinguish from imitators. For example, the Antiphon Painter has many works in his manner that were not tallied, although some may have been his. Third, these painters’ careers were relatively short, and the resulting blurring in the chronology tends to depress the attribution rate by increasing the apparent number of years an artisan worked.15 These factors, however, cannot account for the cohort of painters with very low attribution rates. Figure 4, which presents painters whose careers were longer than 15 years but with fewer than 100 extant works, confirms the existence of a separate, low-production group. This group has about half the annual attributions of the prolific hands in figure 1. Unlike the prolific hands, the variation among this group is very high, ranging from 2.0 to 6.0 vases per year. The painters in figure 4 also lack the strong linear correspondence between career length and total number of works demonstrated in figure 3. It is significant that there is only a cohort of lowproduction painters and not a corresponding group with very high attribution rates.16 Instead, we have a bimodal distribution of painters: (1) a productive group with very consistent annual attribution rates, and (2) an underproductive yet variable group.

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know he did not throw these vases because of more than 50 inscriptions naming another artisan, Hieron, as the potter. However, the painters with unusually low attribution rates may have dedicated a substantial amount of their time to other tasks, which would reduce their apparent productivity. Exekias is one such counterexample. His low productivity can of course be connected to the exceptional quality of his painting, including some meticulously detailed, complex compositions considered masterpieces. However, quality alone cannot explain the underproductive group, which includes unexceptional hands such as Painter N (Nikosthenes). A better explanation for Exekias’ low attribution rate is his work as a potter. Although he signed as a painter three times, his name more often appears with the verb epoiesen, which is generally believed to show that he also threw these vases.17 Both a gifted draftsman and virtuoso potter, Exekias must have been the master craftsman of his workshop. When he did paint, Exekias preferred complex showpieces and eschewed the more hastily rendered scenes that are typical in the repertoires of the most prolific, and presumably full-time, painters. The contrast between Makron and Exekias suggests a binary model of activity, where a vase painter could have been either a potter who occasionally painted or a full-time specialist. This model would account for the bimodal distribution in the attribution rates. Specialist painters in competition with their peers would tend to decorate similar numbers of vases each year, whereas potters could choose what portion of their time they spent painting, leading to more variation in their output as painters. It is possible to test this specialization hypothesis against the attribution rate data. Much research has been aimed at detecting whether an Attic painter was specialized, using clues independent of the attribution rate, such as the craftsmen’s signatures and the analysis of the profiles of unsigned works. However, despite the rich literature on the problem, the scholarship contains a wide range of opinions about how such evidence should be interpreted. To address this problem, it is necessary to examine painter specialization more closely.

Makron’s high output suggests that he was probably a specialist painter. He painted in an attractive but unexceptional style, almost always skyphoi. We

A Specialization Model for Attic Painters The assumption that painters were more mobile than potters has been the primary basis for distinguishing

14 On the statistical regularities, see the section “Statistical Results” in online appx. 1. 15 See the sections “Tallying System” and “Chronology” in online appx. 1. 16 Makron is the only painter whose production greatly ex-

ceeds the norm, but his exceptional rate is probably due to problems with his chronology and the unusually large number of his sherds from private collections. See the commentary on Makron in online appx. 2. 17 Infra nn. 26–7.


Fig. 3. The attribution rate of prolific and moderately productive Attic vase painters. The left chart plots the 35 painters with more than 150 attributions as shown in figure 1, with Makron, an outlier, excluded (black-figure specialists are in bold; red-figure specialists are in italics). The right chart plots the number of attributions by the approximate career length for the 44 painters shown in figures 1 and 2 with at least 100 attributions, excluding outliers. The best-fit line has a slope of 8.02 (works/year) and an r -coefficient of 0.948.

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Names of black-figure specialists are in bold; red-figure specialists are in italics; names with an asterisk have had at least 10 attributions removed because of potential preservation bias. Shaded rows indicate tallies derived from Beazley's lists (ABV, ARV 2, Paralipomena) because no recent catalogues are available for the painter. Numbers in the “Career” column indicate slightly before () dates (2.5 years for calculations) or uncertain (~) dates. Attribution rates more than 10% above or below the mean are marked with double asterisks; triple asterisks represent extreme outliers. The horizontal line divides the archaic from the classical painters; attributions from the Athenian Acropolis have been adjusted for the archaic painters.

Fig. 4. Selected low-productivity Attic vase painters (fewer than 100 attributions). Uncertain attributions are those that might belong to the painter, using Beazley’s designations such as “perhaps,” “near,” and occasionally “manner of.” Only half of the uncertain attributions have been counted in the adjusted total. Works likely to belong to imitators are excluded. When available, recent monographs or dissertations are the basis for the totals. References for the tallies and chronology are presented in online appendix 2.

Attic specialists from potter-painters.18 Potters are tied to a place because of the demands of running a workshop. In ethnographies, a master potter usually oversees production and firing at the site and negotiates the purchase of materials and sales. This must also have been the case in ancient Athens.19 As is clear from depictions on the vases, excavated remains, and ethnographic parallels, an Attic black-gloss workshop

would require a sizeable investment in infrastructure.20 Surveys of the ethnographic record have found that premodern potters typically confined their activities within a limited region, with few exceptions.21 Even mobile potters, such as those who made very large pots, worked a limited circuit and brought the same staff along wherever they set up a temporary workshop.22 Overall, the high degree of skill involved, and

Beazley 1944, 25–36; Cook 1971; Robertson 1972; Scheibler 1983, 1984; Hemelrijk 1991, 252–54; Williams 1995; Jubier-Galinier 1998; Tosto 1999, 1–8, 198–200; Stissi 2002, 124–44; Osborne 2004, 88–93. 19 Peacock 1982, 9–10, 25–46; Arnold 1985, 228–31. On ancient Athens, see Beazley 1944, 33–6; Scheibler 1983, 110–12, 116, 131–32; 1984, 130; Arafat and Morgan 1989, 317; Osborne 2004, 88–9; Williams 2009, 308. 20 Beazley 1944, 1–21; Rieth 1960, 38–44; Webster 1972, 8–9; Zimmer 1982; Scheibler 1983, 73–107; 1986, 790–99; di Caprio 1984; Arnold 1985, 202–21; Noble 1988, 121–47; Arafat and Morgan 1989, 317–18; Hemelrijk 1991, 238–50; Hasaki 2002, 48–9, 225–34, 259–61, 312–14; Stissi 2002, 48–73,

80–6, 92–4; Desbat 2004; Williams 2009. 21 Drennan 1984; Arnold 1985, 32–60, 228–31. 22 Peacock 1982, 8–9, 13–38; Arnold 1985, 109–26; Costin 1991, 2–18. The premier ethnographic analogy to ancient itinerant producers of large storage jars are the potters of Thrapsano and Cyprus (Hampe and Winter 1962, 1–46; Voyatzoglou 1974; Vallianos and Padouva 1986; London 1989, 65–71, 75). Most of our evidence for ancient mobility, however, is of one-way migrations of potters to a new permanent base (MacDonald 1981; Williams 1995, 143, 159; 2009, 309; Crielaard 1999; Coulié 2000; Papadopoulos 2009, 232–35; Alexandridou 2011, 45).

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the workshop facility, would tend to keep an Attic potter in one place. While a master potter would have been physically tied to his workshop, a painter would not. He survived by his skill as a draftsman, and his primary offering was the time he invested in painting each vase. Because the potter could provide the workspace and the pigments and manage the firing, the painter’s additional toolkit included only small implements, such as brushes.23 Under these circumstances, it is only natural that skillful painters might choose to collaborate with different potters and workshops.24 Although there are few ethnographic studies of premodern vase painters, a faience industry that survived through the early 20th century in Fes exhibited these characteristics.25 The master potters, who lacked the time or expertise to glaze their pots with the florid local patterns, contracted independent painters to decorate a quota of their wares. Because the workshops did not have enough demand for faience to employ a painter full-time, these specialists moved fluidly among different shops. Thus, the critical distinction between a potter and painter is mobility. We have two indirect means for determining an Attic painter’s mobility: the craftsmen’s signatures and the analysis of vase profiles. Both are problematic. The two principal verbs used in Attic signatures, egraphsen and epoiesen, suggest that painting and potting were widely recognized as separate jobs by the sixth century B.C.E. The verb egraphsen is agreed to name the painter of the particular vase, but it does not mean that the craftsman was necessarily a specialist painter.26 It is debated whether a poietes inscription— where the “maker” of a pot is named with epoiesen— indicated a workshop group or owner rather than naming an individual craftsman, but on the most basic level epoiesen refers to the potter who shaped the vessel.27 In addition to these ambiguities, signatures are rare and at best provide an incomplete record of an artisan’s collaborations. Douris and Epiktetos are the only painters who signed regularly with egraphsen,

but even they did so on less than a quarter of their known works. Some black-figure shapes, especially Little Master cups and the small amphoras made by Nikosthenes, regularly have poietes inscriptions, but on these classes the painter is seldom explicitly named with egraphsen. Vases with both egraphsen and epoiesen are rare, and the formulation occurs primarily on unusual votives dedicated on the Athenian Acropolis.28 Few vases dating to the end of the Archaic period or later have signatures of either kind. A second important source for identifying m obility is the analysis of vessel shapes and their nonfigural ornament. The foundational study by Bloesch established that vases with poietes inscriptions had recognizable potterwork.29 The method has since been applied to unsigned vases and considers not only the profiles but also the painted border patterns. The corpus of named potters like Hieron has been expanded through this technique, and many other potters active in the Classical period have been designated through shape analysis alone. Although this research supplements the limited and often ambiguous evidence of vase inscriptions, the individuality of these anonymous potters rests on a shakier foundation than that of the painterly hands. It is often unclear whether a group of similar vases is necessarily the work of one potter. However, when the vases by a painter have considerable variations in profile, the painter probably collaborated with multiple potters. It is often assumed that any painter whose corpus has a tight correlation of profiles—and no inscriptional evidence for outside associations—was a potterpainter. However, this situation is actually ambiguous. If a master potter had a career-long collaboration with just one specialist painter, his vases would be correlated in style and shape. We could imagine this happening within a small workshop operated, for example, by two brothers. In this scenario, additional evidence is needed to determine the mode of activity. Makron, who seems to have worked exclusively with Hieron, can be separated from his poietes only by signatures. We

Noble 1988, 99–121; Hemelrijk 1991, 239–42; Boss 1997; Cohen 2006. 24 See, e.g., Seeberg 1994. It has been suggested that some painters were slaves, which would obviously restrict their mobility among workshops. However, there is little direct evidence for slavery (Robertson 1976, 42–4; Scheibler 1983, 119–20; 1984, 130–31; 1986, 796–98; Arafat and Morgan 1989, 326; Williams 1995, 152–55, 159; Stissi 2002, 111–21; Pevnick 2011, 144–45). See also the commentary on Lydos in online appx. 2. 25 Bel 1918, 188 n. 1, 200–1; Loviconi and Loviconi 1994. 26 Beazley 1944, 25; 1986, 16–17; Tiverios 1981, 377, 382; Scheibler 1986, 787–88; Robertson 1992, 3–4; Williams 1995,

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27 Beazley 1944, 25–6; 1986, 50–9; Cook 1971; Robertson 1972; 1992, 3–4, 31–2, 45–6; Eisman 1974; Tiverios 1981; Scheibler 1986, 788; Immerwahr 1990, 171–72; Cohen 1991; Tosto 1999, 182–87; Boardman 2001, 129; Stissi 2002, 98, 104–11; Viviers 2006. The roles of potter and workshop owner are not mutually exclusive, and, in the case of many potterpainters, epoiesen could also signify authorship of the painting. 28 Robertson 1972, 180–81; Tiverios 1981, 377–79; BuitronOliver 1995, 41; Williams 1995, 141–42; Strawczynski 2003. An unusually high percentage of the vases found on the Athenian Acropolis are signed. 29 Bloesch 1940.


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also encounter painters who worked with one poietes in some of the larger workshop groups, such as that of Brygos. Even though the Brygian painters are anonymous, no more than one of the hands could possibly be Brygos himself. Brygos may well have been a fulltime potter, meaning all painters associated with him were specialists. Although the potterwork has yet to be methodically studied and published, a similar linkage is demonstrated by collaborations among the Penthesilean painters, where the appearance of two different hands on different sides of one vase implies a highly specialized production environment.30 It is unlikely that a master potter would have painted vases thrown by other artisans, however, since he would have been tied to his workshop and decorated his own vases. However, we could imagine a painter who moved among different workshops during his career as a specialist, sometimes throwing vases for the master potter of a large workshop. Given these uncertainties, I have classified the evidence for a painter’s mode of activity according to the following typology (Types 1–5). The evidence that a particular hand was a specialist or a potter-painter is presented in online appendix 2. The evidence for specialists (Types 1–3) is clear, whereas that for potterpainters (Types 4 and 5) is more ambiguous: 1. “Roving” painters, such as Oltos, who both signed with egraphsen and worked with multiple potters, provide the strongest evidence for specialization. Oltos may have thrown vases occasionally, but his primary focus was painting. 2. Anonymous painters, shown to have worked for different potters by poietes inscriptions or shape analysis, were likely to have been specialists. 3. Painters who worked extensively with one potter but can be distinguished from that potter by inscriptions or the like must have been specialists. 4. Painters who regularly signed with both egraphsen and epoiesen were probably potter-painters. Exekias is the only certain example.

Webster 1972, 15–17; Williams 1992; 1995, 149; see also online appx. 2. 31 The obvious differences between the two columns are confirmed by a Mann-Whitney test, which gives a p-value of less than 0.0001 that the two underlying populations had equal medians, both when comparing all the painters across the columns and when comparing just the groups with strong evidence. 32 E.g., if we pick an arbitrary value of 6.6 attributions per year, above which any painter is predicted to have “roved” during his career, we can reproduce the table accurately for 34 of the 38 best-documented painters. 33 Using the 38 best-documented painters as the basis for a logistic regression, we can determine the probability that a 30

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5. Potters whose vases were decorated by only one hand for most of their careers may have been potter-painters.

painters and the attribution rate Figure 5 compares the attribution rate with the foregoing model. In fact, a painter’s productivity is highly correlated to whether he worked with one or multiple potters.31 Framing the problem in a more useful way, we may predict whether a painter “roved” as a specialist or was a potter-painter.32 At attribution rates above 7.1 and below 6.0, we can predict that a painter was mostly a specialist or a potter-painter, respectively.33 That several painters with correlated painting and potting in the right column of figure 5 have relatively high productivity is unsurprising, in light of the difficulty in distinguishing potter-painters from specialists who stayed with one potter.34 Overall, figure 5 supports the validity of the attribution rate as a tool for examining real productivity of Attic painters and shows that this rate corresponds well to how much time an artisan spent painting. The low attribution rates for most of the hands with correlated painting and potting reinforce previous assumptions that these craftsmen were potter-painters, not Type 3 specialists. Amasis and Nikosthenes clearly did most of their own painting, and the separate “Painter” designations for their black-figure work are redundant. Despite intermediate attribution rates, the Polos Painter, the Red-Line Painter, and the Affecter were also likely to have been potter-painters. The productivity of the Polos and Red-Line Painters may have been increased by the low quality of their draftsmanship, while the Affecter preferred relatively simple and repetitive scenes.35 The painters of the komast, Siana, and Little Master cups are typically associated with one poietes and his potterwork, and most are believed to have been the potters themselves. However, the group has a wide range of attribution rates (from 2.2 for Hermogenes

painter was a specialist from his attribution rate alone. At 8.7 vases per year, there is a ca. 95% chance of his being a specialist; at 7.2, ca. 70%; at 6.6, ca. 50%; at 6.0, ca. 30%; and at 5.1, ca. 10%. 34 Only Epiktetos and the Calliope Painter are exceptional among the “roving” painters presented in fig. 5. Of the remaining 31 painters with some evidence of specialization, only the Painter of London D12 and the Veii Painter have attribution rates below 7.1, both probably due to a lack of study. Despite evidence for specialization, Lydos and the Antiphon Painter have been separated in the figure because of the unusually large number of works in their manner. 35 He often repeated compositions on both sides of a vase.


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Names of painters with an asterisk have several poietes inscriptions confirming that they worked regularly as potters; names in italics worked primarily for one potter but appear to have been specialists (Type 3). () indicate slightly before or after dates (2.5 years for calculations). Outliers are presented in parentheses and are discussed further in the text.

Fig. 5. Correlation of potting and painting. The evidence for “roving” or a correlation of painting and potting is reviewed in online appendix 2, under the section “Mode of Activity“ for the respective painter.

to 8.9 for the Taras Painter). Here, the relative lack of decoration must have inflated the apparent productivity. The Little Master cups, like those of Tleson, the Centaur Painter, and Hermogenes, have so little painting that a specialist would have been superfluous.36 The situation is less clear with regard to the previous generation: the attribution rates of the C, Heidelberg, and Taras Painters (7.4–8.9) are in line with those of the specialists. Their compositions are more elaborate,

typically with about 10–15 figures, although the scenes are tiny and repetitive. One could imagine them as potter-painters who were able to finish scenes more quickly than painters in later periods, but they may also have been Type 3 specialists affiliated with one potter. In light of their relatively high attribution rates, a few more painters should be identified as Type 3 specialists allied primarily with one potter, similar to Makron-Hieron. Most of the respective vases by the

Tiverios 1981; Fellmann 1990; Immerwahr 1990, 45–55, 171; Heesen 2009. Eucheiros, Sondros, Sokles, and Xenokles, who often signed as poietes, have very few attributions but seem to have painted most or all of their own vases. Taleides, poietes, is another candidate, although his hand (the Taleides Painter) also appears on two late vases signed by Timagoras as potter (ABV 174–77, 688; Paralipomena 73–4; Heesen 2009, 96–101, 273). 36


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Swing, Diosphos, Edinburgh, and Altamura Painters could have been by one potter, but their high attribution rates are accompanied by limited evidence of having also worked for other potters.37 Figure 5 also highlights a few atypical painting careers, including that of Euphronios. Although Euphronios is best known for his painting, his numerous poietes inscriptions demonstrate that he spent the latter two-thirds of his career as a master potter, when he hired assistants for painting. While his early career fits the characteristics of Type 1 specialization, his attribution rate is very low, suggesting he had turned to potting before he ceased painting. A similar transition from painting to potting is evident among his contemporaries Euthymides, Phintias, and Smikros.38 Although not recognized for it before, Epiktetos may also have made a late-career transition to potting. He was a classic Type 1 specialist for his first 15–20 years of painting, and his attribution rate for that period is about 8.5. After ca. 500 B.C.E., his rate declines sharply, to less than four vases per year, despite signs that he continued to be active for at least another decade. Epiktetos does not appear to have risen to lead his own workshop. Despite his fondness for signing his name as painter, he signed as poietes on only one votive on the Athenian Acropolis, and toward the end of his career Epiktetos painted a skyphos thrown by the young Syriskos/Pistoxenos.39 Syriskos is another interesting case. He left us unambiguous evidence of operating as both potter and painter throughout his career. He was a skillful potter of unusual shapes, such as the astragalos he painted and signed as Syriskos, poietes. However, his relatively high attribution rate is inconsistent with his having been the lead potter of one workshop. Although inconclusive, there is some evidence that he was associated with the workshops of Brygos and the Berlin Painter. Syriskos may represent the “roving” potter-painter hypothesized above. Specializing primarily as a talented painter, he may also have been occasionally hired as an assistant potter for unusual vase shapes. Together with Douris, who signed twice as poietes of unusual vases, Epiktetos and Syriskos demonstrate that some mobile painters had a wide range of skills, including potting. It is telling that all three have slight-

ly low attribution rates, as if potting was still only an occasional sideline for an artisan identifying himself mainly as a painter. The three happen to be exceptionally well documented, and we have almost certainly missed some occasional potting by other fifth-century hands. One possibility is the Calliope Painter, whose low attribution rate may reveal that he had a career as both a painter and an assistant potter who stayed within the workshop of the Eretria Painter.

37 The Beldam and Emporion Painters also may have been specialist painters of lekythoi, although further study is required. 38 Ohly-Dumm 1984 (on Euthymides); Robertson 1992, 21–3, 26, 29–32, 45, 57, 81–4; Buitron-Oliver 1995, 67, 74; Williams 1995, 149; 2005, 281–82. Unfortunately, they left too few works for a meaningful assessment of their attribution rates.

39 He may have developed a specialization in throwing plates (see online appx. 2). 40 Brijder 2003, 16; see also the section “Assumptions” in online appx. 1. 41 Pevnick 2011. For more discussion and bibliography on Syriskos, the Bonn-Colmar Painter, and the Syleus Sequence, see their respective commentaries in online appx. 2.

Revisions to Beazley’s Hands I have demonstrated that the attribution rate is a valid indicator sensitive to an Attic painter’s actual productivity in antiquity. To accomplish this, the study has focused on painters with relatively long careers. It has included some hands with relatively few works, but only those demonstrated to have been active for a long period. What of the remaining painters who have fewer than 100 attributions and whose careers are less well defined? Figure 6 presents the counts for all the hands in ABV, ARV 2, and Paralipomena. Through 1971, only 54 of these 637 painters have more than 100 attributions, almost all included in this study. About 500 painters have no more than 30 known vases; 394 have just 10 or fewer identified works. It is difficult to understand the almost 400 painters with 10 or fewer attributions as distinct artisans, given that their works are equal to only a year or two of production at the rates established from the most prolific hands. Rather, they should be seen as temporary “placeholders” for groups of vases linked by style but not necessarily representing the entire production of a unique artisan.40 A number of combinations can be confirmed. Syriskos, as recently redefined by Pevnick, is one artisan whose attribution rate becomes more intelligible when his vases are united with that of another major hand.41 The Bonn and Colmar Painters should probably be combined as well, in light of Beazley’s comments that they might be different phases of one hand. Separately, each has a low output in spite of evidence for working with multiple potters, whereas a united Bonn-Colmar Painter is a typical specialist. The painters of the Syleus Sequence might also be combined, although the chronology and vase-shape analysis are inadequately


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Fig. 6. All painters designated by Beazley (ABV, ARV 2, Paralipomena), excluding his groups and other categories, ranked by productivity. The number of attributions includes all associated works (“near,” “manner of,” etc.) plotted on a logarithmic scale.

In light of the new attribution rate data, we can examine broader developments during the rise of the Attic pottery industry. All the painters considered in this study are presented, according to their mode of activity and chronology, in figure 7. Whereas most of the 22 painters active primarily before 515 B.C.E.

were potter-painters, of which only three or four appear to have been specialists, the situation reverses afterward. By 500, most well-defined painters had specialized, and evidence for potter-painters active after that time is scarce. Having excluded hundreds of minor hands—many of which may have been undetected potter-painters—from the study, we cannot assume that potter-painters were necessarily in decline. We can, however, pinpoint the rise of the specialist painter to the final decade of the sixth century B.C.E. The pattern is significant enough that we should assume any painter who was active before ca. 525 B.C.E. was also a potter, except for a few who clearly worked for multiple potters.43 Lydos appears to have been one of the first to make the transition to specialization; his vases signed by other potters are dated after

42 Some of the more interesting combinations, such as that of Andokides or Apollodoros, will be treated in a separate paper. However, not all the combinations entertained by Beazley and other scholars are likely—e.g., the traditional divisions between the Athena and Bowdoin Painters and between the

Eucharides and Nikoxenos Painters are supported by the attribution data (see online appx. 2). 43 This has been assumed, though unproven, in the literature (Beazley 1944, 38; Scheibler 1986, 788; Hemelrijk 1991, 252–55; Williams 1995, 159; Alexandridou 2011, 39, 41–3).

studied to be sure. Many other combinations are likely to be found in the future.42 Nonetheless, this potential reduction in hands is unlikely to account for all the hundreds of minor painters. Some probably were specialist painters who were active for too short a time to be detected. Many others with relatively few works could have been potters who occasionally painted, like Hermogenes or Exekias.

the attic pottery industry as a whole


Fig. 7. Specialists and potter-painters by chronology. The names of black-figure painters are in black, whereas those of red-figure painters are in white italics. The shading for each painter shows the attribution rate, with darker shades indicating a higher attribution rate. Dashed lines indicate the uncertainty in the beginning and end dates for each career.

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ca. 550.44 Not until the 520s with the Antimenes Painter, however, do we find unequivocal evidence for a painting specialist with high productivity. Thus, specialization came later for painters than for potters, some of whom in the previous generation had specialized in particular shapes, such as the small, widely exported Little Master cups. The dramatic transition toward specialization ca. 510 B.C.E. revealed by the attribution data must be connected to the introduction of the red-figure painting technique. The later 530s and 520s were a time of experiment, with the introduction of white-ground, coral-red, and the Six technique, followed by red- figure. The potters Nikosthenes and Andokides were the central figures during these experiments, and at least Nikosthenes appears to have recruited other artisans to execute all of his vases with the new painting techniques. Red-figure painting apparently demanded a set of skills that most potters, unlike their black-figure predecessors, preferred to leave to specialists. Although surely trained as potters as well, many red-figure painters would have been pulled toward specialization. The network of potters for whom Oltos, Epiktetos, and Douris painted demonstrates that those skilled in the new technique were widely in demand among the potters of the Kerameikos.45 The first redfigure masters attained an elevated status among their peers. These pioneers were more likely to sign their names with egraphsen, and the playful inscriptions of Euphronios, Euthymides, Smikros, and others reflect an unparalleled sense of pride and competition among vase painters.46 That the pioneers left us relatively few works in part reflects the high quality and complexity of their painting but also provides evidence that several were rapidly promoted to potting.47 In contrast, Epiktetos and Oltos became full-time specialists in red-figure painting. At least at first, the pay must have been substantial, and Onesimos was able to afford an expensive dedication on the Athenian Acropolis. Black-figure artists appear to have specialized at the same time, perhaps as master potters became more accustomed to recruiting painters rather than doing the painting themselves.

The specialized job of painter was continued by large numbers of anonymous artisans through the Early Classical period. We see, however, a decline in the evidence for specialists after the middle of the century (see fig. 7). Since the total number of identified painters does not decline as significantly, there may have been more potter-painters active by the 430s B.C.E. For example, the dozen or more Polygnotan painters may have thrown their own vases.48 Lacking a degree of study equivalent to that of the painters of the Archaic period, however, artisans of the latter part of the fifth century are more difficult to identify. Specialists remained important, such as the many painters in the Penthesilean group and the workshop of the Achilles Painter, who produced a range of products from hastily manufactured cups to large pots of higher quality. Finally, there was a dramatic decline in the number of prolific painters, whether specialists or potter-painters, in the last decades of the fifth century.

His relatively low attribution rate has been muddled by problems identifying his work. The Taras Painter is another early candidate for specialization, but there are no clear indications that he worked with multiple potters. 45 Although signatures were less common in the fifth century, it appears that specialist painters in the following generations were less mobile. Most had a lifelong residency in a primary workshop with occasional outside contacts. 46 Arafat and Morgan 1989, 320; Williams 1991, 117–18; 2005, 273–74, 280; 2009, 310–11; Robertson 1992, 26–32; Stissi 2002, 146–50.

Supra n. 38. Robertson 1992, 210–14, 221–23; Matheson 1995, 7–74, 82–3, 108–14, 122–28, 135–41, 147–60, 176–85, 295–97, 345– 485. Their work is grounded in the tradition of the Niobid Painter, one of the few classical potter-painters identified by this study. 49 See the sections “Assumptions” and “Commentary on the Industry-Wide Analysis” in online appx. 1. 50 See the section “Commentary on the Industry-Wide Analysis” in online appx. 1.

44

The Scale of the Attic Vase-Painting Industry With the attribution rate established, we are prepared to estimate the population of Attic painters active during the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.E. The attribution rate avoids the uncertainty created by Beazley’s hundreds of minor hands and groups, which may not represent the work of a single painter. Instead, we can use the productivity of the well-defined hands to extrapolate how many painters must have been active to produce all the attributed, figured vases over a given period. The total number of fully published, attributed vases is still relatively small (