Tátrai Vilmos szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 92-93.(Budapest, 2000)
SZILÁGYI, JÁNOS GYÖRGY: "Les Adieux". A Column-krater of the Syracuse Painter
The column-krater is the type of vase most often decorated by the Syracuse Painter. Its history over at least two centuries has been reconstructed with fair accuracy. 59 The shape was probably created at Corinth in the second half of the 7 th century, and the first Attic black-figure examples appeared not long after. Around the middle of the 6th century it was a favourite especially in the circle of Lydos, but after this lost its popularity, only to regain it rather suddenly toward the end of the century, remaining popular in later black-figure production as well. The first examples in red-figure appear already with the very beginnings of the new technique, but thereafter the shape was rediscovered only about 500-490; from this time onwards its greatest flowering lasts into the 420s. It seems highly probable that the potters of one or two workshops, and a handful of painters as well, specialized, largely if not exclusively, in the production and decoration of column-kraters, over and against the volute- and calyx- types, for a segment of the market with modest means and tastes. 60 By the end of the century, the column-krater had been completely supplanted by the much later bell-shaped type. The greater part of both the Corinthian and the Attic production was exported, and Italy was certainly the biggest market. All the same, the differences in the concentration of finds inside Italy itself are remarkable. J. de La Géniére has called attention to the fact that the vast majority of the Corinthian column-kraters were found at Cerveteri. 61 The importance of this phenomenon is underscored by the fact that of the Etruscan imitations of Corinthian-type vases, column-kraters have been found, with very few exceptions, only at Cerveteri, although the Rosoni Painter, who specialized in decorating this shape, had his workshop at Vulci. 62 At this time Caere was the main Italian market for Laconian kraters also. 63 From the middle of the century, the Corinthian krater and its Etruscan imitations disappear along with the Laconian type; of the vases that the Attic import trade, which really gets under way at this time, brought to Italy, we hardly find a single example of the kraters produced by Lydos or his circle. 64 The custom of the Symposion had, in the form of a banquet, already become a status-symbol among the Etruscan principes of the 7 th century, but the wide-ranging 59 On its ancient name see Amyx, D.A., Hesperia 27 (1958) 198, n. 79. For its antecedents, stretching back possibly as far as the Geometric period, see Moore, M.B. - Pease Philippides, M.Z., Attic blackfigured pottery (The Athenian Agora, vol. XXIII), Princeton 1986, 23. On its history in Corinth see Payne, NC, 1931, 300-301. On its history in Athens and Corinth up to the mid-6 th c. see Bakir, T, Der Kolonettenkrater in Korinth und Attika zwischen 625 und 550 v. Chr., Würzburg 1974; in Athenian blackfigured pottery: Moore - Pease Philippides, op. cit. 23-25; in Athenian red-figure: Moore, op. cit. (n.38) 20-23 and Isler-Kerényi. op. cit. (n.37) 94-96. The changes the form underwent in Athens are easily studied in Richter, G.M. A. - Milne, M., Shapes and Names of Athenian Vases, New York 1935, figg. 4348; the type of the Budapest vase is to be seen in fig. 47. 60 Masters: Beazley ARV 2 , 237 (Myson); 562 (the early mannerists and their circle; the Syracuse Painter did not belong to them); 1088 ff.. See also Schauenburg, K., Quaderni ticinesi 11 (1982) 9-31, with further pieces. Workshops specializing in production of column-kraters: Mingazzini. P., Vasi della Coll. Castellani I, Roma 1930, 216; Beazley, J.D., Potter and Painter in Ancient Athens, London 1946, 11-13. 61 La Géniére, J. de. op. cit. (n.28) 203 and Ead., BCH 112 (1988) 83-90. 62 Szilágyi, CEF II, 1998, 369-370 and n. 242 (with bibliography). 53 Nafissi, M., in Studi sulla ceramica laconica (Atti Perugia 1981), Roma 1986, 162, fig. 12 and Id., in Stibbe, CM., Laconian Mixing Bowls, Amsterdam 1989, 71. 64 Szilágyi LG., Eirene 31 (1995) 46-47.
