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

JÁNOS GYÖRGY SZILÁGYI: A Boar Hunt

The base and the missing projecting parts were made completely separately. These were attached in the usual way

2 with black gloss, traces of which can be clearly seen on the nose of the horse, the head of the boar, the place of the horse's front legs, and on the back, on the edges of the remaining part of the neck (figs. 3-4). The front with its relief decoration was first covered with a foundation layer of yellow-white paint and then painted with bright tempera colours.' The white foundation layer survives in several places, but the colours have remained in only two: there are traces of yellow on the horse's mane and reddish purple behind the left hand of the rider (fig. 5). Most of the back was covered with black to dark brown gloss shading of which only traces remain, mostly on the neck. This is not a rare occurrence,

4 and is usually explained with the assumption that figure vases like this one were normally fired at a lower than usual temperature.

5 Vases modelled wholly or partially on human or animal figures have been produced for use in cult practises, or more rarely as ornaments, since the invention of pottery. Vases with groups of figures became fashionable in Greek art from the fifth century BG, beginning in Sotades' workshop in the second quarter of the century. As the quality of painted pottery declined, figure vases were produced in increasing numbers in Attic workshops down to the end of the fourth century.

6 Outside Athens, Olynthos was the largest centre of figure vase production until its destruction in the mid-fourth century.

7 A scattering of locally produced examples appears in Italy, especially in Magna Graecia;

8 in Greece no other workshops can be identified with certainty, and their popularity was also minimal, at least according to what can be ascertained from the known findspots. Pieces from Athens have been found in considerable numbers at Olynthos and other northern Greek findspots, and in even greater numbers on the Black Sea littoral, especially in the Greek settlements." Nothing is really known about the provenance of the Museum's vase. On the basis of clay colour alone, it was definitely not produced in Athens, nor can it have been made in Italy for the same reason. Any connection with Olynthus is excluded by the style. The subject of the decoration distinguishes it clearly from other known figure vases. Three or four examples of mounted figures are known from Athenian finds:

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" not one, however, represents a hunting DETAIL WITH TRACES Ol BUDAPEST, MUSEUM OF COLOUR. FINE ARTS