Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei (Budapest, 2007)

ANDRÁS MÁRTON AND GYÖRGY NEMES: Corinthian White-Ground Lekythoi

H. Palmer based her chronology of the Corinthian white lekythoi on the hypothesis that the import of Attic pottery into Corinth was broken off during the Peloponnesian War. It was to replace the imported wares that Corinthian production began in the second half of the fifth century BC (after 440 or 430). At first, it closely followed its Attic models (group i), and later diverged from them (group ii). After the Peace of Nikias in 421 BC, commercial relations were restored. A renewed inflow of Attic vases led to the last group of Corinthian white lekythoi (group iii), which again took Attic models as a starting point. The end of their manufacture was impossible to date precisely: scholars thus fixed this date as contemporary with the cessation of Attic production at the end of the fifth century BC, or a few years later.

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'' H. Palmer dated her groups i and ii to 440/430-421 BC, and group iii to ca. 421-400 BC.6 Later, however, B. R. MacDonald convincingly proved that Corinth imported Attic pottery continuously down to the end of the fifth century BC.

27 The start of local production of white-ground lekythoi cannot be connected to any supposed interruption of the import of Attic wares into Corinth. The only point of proof in absolute chronology relates to the polyandrion of Thespiae (424 BC), where lekythoi of group iii are already among the finds.

28 In the following pages, we will attempt to refine Palmer's chronological scheme, using a much wider data sample than was available to her, to give an overall picture of Corinthian white-ground lekythoi. The presumed activity of the Beldam Painter in Corinth, which was noticed by Haspels in 1936, could alter the date of the earliest white lekythoi produced locally in Corinth. The chronology of each of Palmer's groups can likewise be refined, on the one hand, using new results on the chronology of Attic vases found together with Corinthian white-ground lekythoi on the one hand, and by conclusions drawn from simultaneous finds of the three groups together in closed contexts on the other. WHITE-GROUND LEKYTHOS. BUDAPEST. MUSEUM OE EINE A RES EVIDENCE FOR THE DATING OF PALMER'S GROUP I If indeed the Beldam Painter decorated vases made of Corinthian clay, then the beginning of Palmer's group i, which follows the shape and decoration of this painter's vases, and the be-