This is the Nicholson Museum's second volume and Australia's second contribution to the Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum series.Footnote ¹ The first volume featured the pottery of Apulia, and this second focuses on the Nicholson Museum's collection of South Italian pottery from Lucania, Campania, Paestum and Sicily as well as its collection of over-painted Gnathia pottery. The University of Sydney has a long history of association with the pottery of South Italy, most notably through the work of Arthur Dale Trendall, who acquired 35 of the 66 described pots and to whom this volume is dedicated. This work is the result of the second collaboration between T., curator of the Nicholson Museum (2005-) and C., director of the Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens and former honorary curator of the Nicholson Museum (1962–2000).

One of the most valuable features of this second Nicholson Museum CVA is the use of colour plates. The same was the case with the first volume, which was also the first to use colour illustrations. Colour illustrations enable the reader to appreciate and study the use of added colour and the diversity of clay types. The vases were photographed under the same lighting conditions to allow for comparison of clay colours, and also specially to highlight their three-dimensional nature and degree of gloss. In addition to the photographs, every complete pot has a profile drawing done to the same scale listed before the plates and, similarly, each fragment has such a drawing depicted in the body of the text.

Surprisingly, the table of contents is absent, which makes browsing this volume rather cumbersome. The main sections are foreword, preface, acknowledgements, a section about Trendall and the Nicholson Museum, authorship and methodology, bibliography, main text, indexes and concordances, profile drawings and plates. The main text, profile drawings and plates cover 66 vases and fragments catalogued by fabric: Lucania (19), Campania (14), Paestum (9), Sicily (7), over-painted Gnathian vases (13), Teano ware (3) and one St Valentin pot. The order follows the one used by Trendall in Red Figure Vases of South Italy and Sicily: a Handbook (1989). Within each group, the vases are catalogued chronologically rather than by shape and, as correctly determined by the authors, this gives a better overview of the development of style over time and keeps work attributed to one painter together. The main text includes a list consisting of chief information, dimensions and condition, subsidiary decoration and other features, subject, bibliography, comparanda, comment and attribution, and date for each vase and fragment. The opinions expressed in the comments were written by T.

The indexes and concordances contain helpful lists such as main index, shapes, painters and groups, LIMC concordance, religious and mythological figures, and index of objects represented. Next, the profile drawings section consists of 66 cross-section drawings at a scale of 1:5 of each vase organised by fabric, as in the main text. Finally, the plates section includes 211 colour photographs of details and full views that are high-definition and of the highest quality. The complete list of vases are bell kraters (26), skyphoi (5), oinichoai (5), hydriae (3), bottles (3), askoi (2), calyx kraters (2), lekanis lids (2), pagenstecher lekythos (2) and one each of an amphora, epichysis, kantharos, kemai, lekythos, nestoris, olpe, pyxis, plate, cup and a dish. A large number of the plates show one side of a single vase, in addition to side views as well as front and back. Omission of the specific region from the individual plates makes the browsing somewhat difficult.

The subject matter of these vases is the major interest for modern students and scholars, as they are a vast source of visual information about the material culture and interests of the population of Magna Graecia. Not surprisingly, several pots depict Dionysus and his followers; there are six pots with Dionysus, four with maenads and eleven showing satyrs. In addition to the usual Dionysiac subjects, there is an image of a seated Dionysus with a water bird in his lap and a beautifully dressed maenad standing next to him (NM49.9). Another curious image is of Pan and a naked female figure dancing in procession (NM46.45). She is wearing a chest ornament (described as ‘a string of beads over each shoulder passing diagonally across her chest and between her breasts’) and a knotted cord on her thigh (also described as a ‘circle of beads’ even though they both look like a string or a thread), which are usually identified as erotic or love magic amulets and devices. A few pots bear important images derived from Greek drama; still much of what we know about performing practices in Greek theatres is based on the study of these vases. For instance, a Paestan bell krater (NM47.4) depicts Dionysus and an actor dressed as Papposilenus. The actor is wearing a nebris, a fawn skin, over a white-bobbled costume which clearly ends at his wrists and above the heads of the two figures hangs a wreathed mask of a slave from comedy.

The Nicholson Museum has compiled another exemplary volume, and with its extensive high-quality colour illustrations, this fascicule is an invaluable addition to the series.