This lavishly illustrated volume contains the papers presented at the third international conference Athenian Potters and Painters (APP III) held in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 2012. With 27 contributions, all presented in English and in alphabetical order of the authors, this volume is considerably thinner than its predecessors with 43 essays in APP I and 32 in APP II. This review intends to give a critical account of the scope and quality of this volume, and cannot offer a critique of each of the contributions, which explore a large variety of topics.
J. Mertens discusses chariot depictions on black-figure Athenian vases and raises the question whether the production of these vases with chariot scenes was a result of a demand from the Etruscan market. B. Cohen meticulously illustrates the way translucent materials such as baskets, nets or cages containing hares or birds are indicated on Athenian vases. With a view from behind the klinê T. McNiven takes the Athenian symposium outdoors, out of the cosy dining room lined with couches, whereas S. Pevnick offers an amusing survey of depictions on Athenian vases of both good and bad dog behaviour. N. Arrington argues that fallen vessels at tombs, depicted on a small group of white-ground lekythoi, symbolise that as time passes, the tomb persists as a site of memory, and the dead remain present at their tomb. T.J. Smith gives a cursory survey of red-figure painters of komast scenes concluding that they closely follow the black-figure komast iconography.
Reconstructing a tomb group found in 1879 in Tuscany S. Bundrick adds new meaning to the five individual Athenian vases by considering them in their Etruscan funerary context. D. Saunders introduces an Etruscan context for a fragmentary calyx-krater by the Seleus Painter in Malibu, using a very evident clue inscribed below the rim's interior: the (remaining) first two letters of ‘suthina’ or ‘suthil’, Etruscan terms meaning ‘for the tomb’. The Etruscan practice of ‘suthinising’ objects occurs mainly in Northern Etruria, in the area of Volsinii. Seven more fragments with suthil-inscriptions in the Malibu collection with possible links to the Seleus Painter's krater are presented here. Etruria, especially Vulci and Chiusi, but also Cerveteri and Tarquinia, was also the final destination of the majority of Athenian red-figure plates from the beginning of their production until about the middle of the fifth century, where they arrived in sets of up to 20, as M. Iozzo demonstrates in his detailed discussion of the plates by Paseas.
New and mainly unpublished material is the main topic of three papers: R. Sutton and Y. Kourayos introduce the recently excavated Athenian black-figure and red-figure from the Sanctuary of Apollo at Mandra on Despotiko, a small deserted island southwest of Paros in the Cyclades. By offering an overview of the stray finds of Athenian red-figure cups in the Kerameikos, H. Frielinghaus shows that they were not as scarce in that area as the published contexts seem to indicate, whereas S. Klinger writes a brief account of the hardly known vase collection in the Museum of Mediterranean Archaeology at Nir David, Israel, in anticipation of a CVA being prepared.
In their respective papers, T. Carpenter, K.E. Heuer and F. Hildebrandt discuss how scenes known in Athenian vase-painting were modified to fit South Italian needs. P. Segal shines new light on a well-known Athenian red-figure kantharos by the Brygos Painter, found in Thebes in Boeotia, by exploring it in its Theban perspective. In his close examination of a red-figure column-krater by the Suessula Painter in Princeton, M. Padgett finds a Peloponnesian link and wonders whether a partisan of the Thirty and of the pro-Spartan/pro-Persian party in Athens may have commissioned this vase. M. Stansbury-O'Donnell explores the iconography of Menelaus and Helen contextually, considering the relationship of market and narrative choice for this story. One of his interesting conclusions is that the number of scenes in which Menelaus drops his sword surge at a time when Athens and Sparta were strong rivals, and the mockery of the heroic king of Sparta would be appreciated most.
S. Rotroff publishes two largely overlooked vases in St Louis: a black gloss stamnos from the Spotlight Group with an aulos-playing scorpion painted over the gloss on its shoulder, and a head vase with the grinning face of an African woman. Rotroff demonstrates that the often rejected suggestion by C. Seltman, that the woman represents the African bogeywoman Lamia, a familiar figure in fifth-century imagination, deserves reconsideration. A. Shapiro's very precise examination of the Robinson Group of Panathenaic amphorae leaves no question untouched.
Further advancing his arguments made in an earlier study about iambic poets fictionalising their personalities (G. Hedreen in D. Yatromanolakis [ed.], An Archaeology of Representations [2009], pp. 200–39), Hedreen will certainly stir up some discussion with this new paper arguing that Smikros (‘Shorty’), known from at least three, but possibly five vase-painter's signatures, was not a real vase-painter, but the fictional, pictorial creation of Euphronios, his (funny) alter ego. In a similar case, he argues that Epilykos might be one and the same person as the vase-painter Skythes. T. Mannack takes on the puzzling phenomenon of kalos inscriptions and primarily concludes that the mostly foreign customers did not buy specific kalos names, but just inscriptions, which enhanced the cultural status of the vases.
K. Lynch and S. Matter borrow the term connectivity from the science of population ecology, describing what factors affect the movement between populations, to explain the relatively large number of imported Athenian pottery at Gordion.
Having discussed Athenian phialai in (polychrome) Six's technique in an earlier paper (A. Tsingarida in D. Kurtz et al. [edd.], Essays in Classical Archaeology for Eleni Hatzivassiliou (1977–2007) [2008], pp. 105–14), Tsingarida now examines a small group of red-figure phialai, two pieces with ornamental patterns and a group of undecorated coral-red phialai. S. Schmidt discusses new shapes invented during the last decades of the sixth century and concludes that they hint at the changing self-awareness of the potters and painters, rather than at new functional needs or special wishes of the customers. Likewise, in his presentation of the results of his ongoing research on Athenian pottery production, P. Sapirstein finds a major shift in the pottery industry in the 520s, when painters start experimenting with new painting techniques, and especially red-figure, leading to more specialised painters, who seem to work for more than one potter (an extended version of his paper has been published in AJA 117 [2013], 493–510).
Editorially, a few improvements for the next volume may be suggested: brief abstracts might provide some guidance to the reader, especially since the thematic division of the conference is not imposed in the book. Footnotes instead of endnotes would prevent much of the continuous, rather annoying, page turning. And finally, more consistency in the illustrations: whereas Iozzo's essay is beautifully illustrated by 23 figures and 4 colour photos, M. Seifert, who discusses two black-figure scenes of a departing warrior, uses rather poor scans to illustrate her point. Since the two discussed vases are in easily accessible collections (Karlsruhe and the Vatican), the editor should have pushed for better images.
These minor remarks aside, this reviewer thoroughly enjoyed the high quality and originality of many inspiring contributions. If this volume shows us one thing, it is that we need to keep looking at details on Athenian vases to enhance our understanding of the world in which they were produced and used. And that is exactly what the contributors to this volume stimulate the reader to do.
