Tátrai Vilmos szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 83. (Budapest, 1995)
JOHNSTON, ALAN: Graffiti and dipinti on Greek and Italic Vases of the Department of Classical Antiquities
reminding me of the manner of inscribing that we find on several amphorae of the Affecter (7M21A, V). 8 is again a mark on which no comment can be made, especially as the foot is foreign to the vase and its true home is not known. 9 and 10 may well be taken together. Parallels may be a pair of Louvre oenochoai by the Gela painter, TM 13B,3-4. Other simple sigma marks are listed in TM type 19F n.2, to which can be added a second stamnos in Six's technique, Leiden RSx 1 (CVA 2 13-14) and and oenochoe from Sindos, XINAOZ no. 355; I argue, TM ibid., that most, but probably not all - especially those cut on oenochoai -, may be an abbreviation of a word such as Gta'idvoÇ 11 bears a pair of signs that are likely to be Etruscan and can be parallelled on contemporary pieces, though on no other oenochoe (TM 33A, iii; add a neck-amphora in the Vatican noted by D. von Bothmer, Gnomon 85, 1981, 353); the second sign may be Etruscan ch, but the first is enigmatic. 12 is likely to have a provenance of Greece or South Italy. Graffiti are extremely rare on ivy-pattemed lekythoi, which were mass-produced for funerary use. Among the dipinti on BF vases I would judge 23 to be a variant of TM type 36A; dipinti are otherwise unknown in this form, though the more cursive shape, type 32Amay be related, though none of the marks are confined to the centre, "navel", of the foot as here. Both types appear relatively early, 32A somewhat earlier, though on two problem vases, probably not Attic; 23 may be, at c.550, slightly earlier than the earlier vases in these types, but has no obvious workshop connection with them; Szilágyi points out the vase's relationship to the Tyrrhenian group, where the record of preserved marks is thin, often amounting only to poorly preserved traces of red dipinti; therefore this example is of some interest merely because of its state of preservation. The shape of the mark may well be that of an anchor, and so have a more direct relationship with the export of pots than other non-alphabetic marks. No comment is possible on 25 and little on 24; dipintophi is not very rare but known examples do not appear to fall into any close group (Würzburg 260, type B amphora, probably earlier; Sotheby 8-9/12/86, lot 293, n-a, distinctly earlier). 26 is potentially more interesting; as an abbreviation, AT cannot be expanded in many ways and so it is reasonable that the pot marks of this type (TM type 4B) be attributed to one man. There is, however, a complication in that several appear on slightly later RF cups, and are more likely to be Etruscan owner's marks, such as are frequent on kylikes; the script gives little evidence to facilitate a decision; in fact 26 stands a little apart from the mark on othet BF pots in the shape of the alpha. While it is also the only column-krater among seven (or eight) neck-amphorae, such a ratio is not at all unexpected among trademarks. 4 The marks on RF vases include the most interesting of the marks, on 50.154 (16), a later fifth century hydria of the Class of London El 95 (ARV 1077, 3 and TM 1 F,4, with pi. 3,15). The word /U"|K\)'0ta is cut under the foot, suggesting that a set of such vases in Add to type AB a neck-amphora probably by the Red-Line painter, ex London market (Ede 8020).
