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The Lampas Painter1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 August 2013
Extract
The artist I call the Lampas painter painted the torch-race on the mug in the Karlsruhe Museum that Blümel reproduced on plate 134 of his book Sport der Hellenen. Though I have found it difficult to place the style of the Lampas painter within the whole production of Apulian vases with certainty, I have no doubt that it is Apulian.
Sir John Beazley first pointed out to me that the style of the mug in Karlsruhe was identical with that of the mug Oxford 1934.17. Later I came across two more vases, which, I thought, should go with those in Karlsruhe and Oxford. One was in Truro, the other in Reading. I compared photographs of them with Blümel's reproduction of the Karlsruhe vase and photographs of the Oxford vase, and came to the conclusion that they were all painted by the same hand.
This is a short description of the subjects represented on the four vases by the Lampas painter known to me:
1. Mug (oinochoe shape VIII B). Karlsruhe Museum. Pl. V, 1, after Blümel, Sport der Hellenen, 115, pl. 1 34. Three naked youths in torch-race. On either side of the first racer a post. Height 125 mm.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © British School at Rome 1951
References
2 I know of no other representation of a torch-race on a Greek South Italian vase.
3 A woman bouncing a ball is represented on an Apulian oinochoe in Altenburg (see Ze tschrift für Kunst, 1950, Heft 3, pp. 185–6, figs. 157–8), to which Sir John Beazley kindly drew my attention.
4 To my knowledge there are three different types of Apulian red-figured mugs (I am aware of the difference between corresponding shapes of Attic and Greek South Italian vases; but wherever possible, I call the latter after Beazley's names of the former):
(a) The oinochoe shape VIII B, to which belong vases such as Bologna, Pellegrini PU. 694, C.V. III, IV Dr, pl. 32, 16; Taranto C.V. I, IV dr, pl. 16 3–4; Copenhagen inv. 4813, C.V. VI, pl. 265, 2; Cracow, Czartoryski Museum inv. 1454, C.V. II, pl. 16 (Pol. 70), 2.
(b) The oinochoe shape VIII M, to which belong vases such as Brunswick AT 687, C. V. pl. 40, 3–4 (with this compare the shape of the Attic vase Oxford 1928, 30, C.V. II, pl. 65, 1).
(c) The oinochoe shape VIII N, to which belong vases such as Toronto 383, Robinson and Harcum, pl. LXVII and Copenhagen inv. Chr. VIII 14, C.V. VI, pl. 265, 5. With this compare the shape of the Attic vase Athens NM. 1631, Wolters, Zu griechischen Agonen, p. 5, fig. 1.
Misses Richter and Milne call the Attic mug a cup. This seems to me rather confusing: apart from the fact that term is now commonly used to indicate the kylix, it is used by the same authors so broadly as to include even two shapes of vase without handles (see Shapes and Names of Athenian Vases, p. 31, figs. 185–8).
5 The Eros on Reading vase is treated in a slightly different way.
6 For the representation of left legs in three-quarter view see especially the first torch-racer of the Karlsruhe vase and the youth on the Truro mug. The right leg of the Eros on the Reading vase resembles the right legs of the torch-racers, while the corresponding leg of the youth on the vase in Truro is more bent.
7 The genitals of the Eros on the Reading vase are also peculiarly treated.
8 Blümel must have interpreted these lines as the top edges of shoes, since in his text on the Karlsruhe mug he writes: ‘… they all wear a radiate diadem, a band over the breast, and shoes’. This interpretation seems to me wrong: I do not know any representation of a Greek athlete wearing shoes.
9 Notice that the hair of the first torch-racer, who is scarcely visible in our reproduction of tile Karlsruhe vase, is tied up in a chignon.
10 One would be tempted to identify the ornament on the lampadistae's heads with that worn by lampadistae on Attic vases (see the bell-krater London 98. 7–16. 6 by the Nikias painter, Schröder, Sport, pl. 51, 2; A.R.V. 847); but this would be wrong. Stephanai like those of our lampadistae are often worn by figures on Greek South Italian vases.
11 It would be difficult to compare the features of their faces, but there is no doubt that their eyes were drawn by the same hand.
12 Notice however that the folds of the chiton of the woman on the Oxford vase are indicated by straighter lines.
13 For representations of deer on Apulian vases see among others London F277 (which I attribute to the Iliupersis painter), Copenhagen inv. Chr. VIII 316, C.V. VI, pl. 261 and pl. 262, 1, or Zurich, Archaeological Collection of the University, Overbeck, Atlas, pl. 13, 11 (for detail-photographs of this vase I am indebted to Dr. Christoph Clairmont).
14 With the musical instrument in the field of the Truro mug, cf. that near the woman playing the trigonon on the obverse of Copenhagen inv. Chr. VIII 316, C.V. VI, pl. 261, 1c. Wegner (Das Musikleben der Griechen, p. 66) calls this instrument a xylophone.
15 Of the floral ornament on the Karlsruhe mug only a very small part can be seen in our reproduction, sufficient however to assume that it should not be different from the others.
16 The tendrils are shorter on the Reading and Karlsruhe vases, and the spiral-shaped tops of the outer ones turn down and almost touch the wave-pattern below; they are set higher on the Truro and Oxford vases because the egg-pattern over the main scene does not extend to the surface above the floral ornament and behind the handle.
17 Details on Apulian vases are often indicated in yellow or white colour. When yellow colour is used, it is, so far as I know, always applied on top of a layer of white colour.