Drawing the Greek Vase 019285612X, 9780192856128

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DR AW I NG T H E G R E E K VA S E

V I S UA L C ON V E R S AT ION S I N A R T A N D A RC H A E OL O G Y General Editor: Jaś Elsner Visual Conversations is a series designed to foster a new model of comparative inquiry in the histories of ancient art. The books serve collectively as a public platform to demonstrate by example the possibilities of a comparative exercise of working with objects across cultures and religions within defined, but broad, historical trajectories.

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Drawing the Greek Vase Edited by

C A SPA R M E Y E R and

A L E X I A PET S A L I S -­D IOM I DI S

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Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Caspar Meyer and Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis 2023 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2023930842 ISBN 978–0–19–285612–8 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192856128.001.0001 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

A CK N O WL E DG E ME NT S The origins of this volume lie in a workshop, ‘Drawing the Greek Vase’, held at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in June 2015. This was a small, vibrant event consisting of seven papers, a pottery handling session and an examination of a selection of Sir John Beazley’s drawings in the Classical Art Research Centre. We followed up this workshop with a Classical Archaeology Seminar Series at the London Institute of Classical Studies in the academic year 2015–16, entitled ‘Objects in Translation’. This broadened the objects under discussion from Greek vases to antiquities and archaeology more generally; it further explored photography and digital media as modes of transcription and included practitioners (an illustrator and a photographer) in the line-­up of speakers. Most of the chapters in this volume ori­gin­ate in ‘Drawing the Greek Vase’ and ‘Objects in Translation’, and we also commissioned a small number of additional ones. We are very grateful to Jaś Elsner for his longstanding support of the project, and to Peter Stewart and Diana Rodríguez Pérez for enabling our pottery hand­ling session and examination of drawings by Sir John Beazley at CARC. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support given by the Oxford University John Fell OUP Research Fund and the Corpus Christi College Centre for the Study of Greek and Roman Antiquity for the original workshop, and the financial support given by the Institute of Classical Studies for the seminar series ‘Objects in Translation’. We have received valuable assistance in finalizing the typescript from Katherine Cohen and Emily Isakson at the Bard Graduate Center. Caspar Meyer, Bard Graduate Center, New York Alexia Petsalis-­Diomidis, University of St Andrews

CO NT E NT S List of Contributors

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List of Illustrations

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List of Abbreviations

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1. Introduction

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Alexia Petsalis-­Diomidis 2. Why Drawing Still Matters: Connecting Hands and Minds in the Study of Greek Vases

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Caspar Meyer 3. Winckelmann’s Elegant Simplicity: From Three to Two Dimensions and Back Again

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Amy C. Smith 4. The Graphic Medium and Artistic Style: Thomas Hope (1769–1831) and Two-­Dimensional Encounters with Greek Vases

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Alexia Petsalis-­Diomidis 5. The Flattened Greek Vase

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Milette Gaifman 6. Images of Greek Vases as a Basis for a Scientific Archaeology: Investigating the Archival Legacy of the Gerhard’scher Apparat’s Drawings

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Marie-­Amélie Bernard 7. Volume and Scale: Adolf Furtwängler and Karl Reichhold’s Hervorragende Vasenbilder and the Study of Visual Narrative on Late Fifth-­Century Vases Katharina Lorenz

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8. Drawing as an Instrument of Connoisseurship: J. D. Beazley and His Late Nineteenth-­Century Forerunners187 Athena Tsingarida 9. Drawing the Greek Vase: A British Museum Illustrator’s Perspective

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Kate Morton 10. Drawing vs Photography: On the Gains and Losses of Technical Innovation

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Nikolaus Dietrich 11. The Use of Photographs in the Trade of Greek Vases

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Vinnie Nørskov 12. Afterword

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Caspar Meyer Index313

L I S T O F C ONT RI B UT O RS Marie-­Amélie Bernard wrote a PhD thesis in archaeology entitled Francesco Depoletti (1779–1854) in his Time: Survey of the Archaeology, Collection and Restoration of Greek Vases in Rome Between 1820 and 1850. She was chargée d’études in the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art (INHA, Paris), obtained a scholarship from the Ecole Française de Rome and carried out her post-­doctoral research in Labex HASTEC. She is now an independent researcher working particularly on the history of the excavations in Etruria in the 1830s. Her studies also encompass the key players in the archaeological world of the nineteenth century, including institutions, such as the Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica, and scholars, dealers, and collectors. Nikolaus Dietrich has been Professor of Classical Archaeology at Heidelberg since 2015. His research deals especially with Archaic and Classical Greek art. He is the author of Bild ohne Raum? Bäume und Felsen in der attischen Vasenmalerei des 6. und 5. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. (2010), Das Attribut als Problem. Eine bildwissenschaftliche Untersuchung zur griechischen Kunst (2018), co-­editor (with M. Squire) of Ornament and Figure in Graeco-­Roman Art: Rethinking Visual Ontologies in Classical Antiquity (2018), and co-­author (with J. Fouquet and C. Reinhardt) of Schreiben auf statuarischen Monumenten. Aspekte materialer Textkultur in archaischer und frühklassischer Zeit (2020). Milette Gaifman is the Andrew Downey Orrick Professor of Classics and History of Art at Yale University. A scholar of ancient art and archaeology, her work focuses primarily on Greek art of the Archaic and Classical periods. She is the author of Aniconism in Greek Antiquity (2012) and The Art of Libation in Classical Athens (2018), and co-­editor of Exploring Aniconism, thematic issue of Religion 47 (2017), and The Embodied Object in Classical Antiquity, special issue of Art History (June 2018). Her current book project, Classification and the History of Greek Art and Architecture (forthcoming), is the revised and expanded version of the Louise Smith Bross Lectures she delivered at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Department of Art History at the University of Chicago in 2018. Additionally, she was the Co-­editor-­in-­Chief of The Art Bulletin from 2020 to 2022. Katharina Lorenz is Professor of Classical Archaeology and Director of the collection of ancient art at Justus-­Liebig Universität Giessen. She is the author of Bilder machen Räume. Mythenbilder in pompeianischen Häusern (2008) and Mythological Images and their Interpretation (2016). Her research focus is on the methodologies for the study of Classical art and their implications for historical understanding. She has published widely on Greek and Roman visual narrative, Roman painting and the domestic context, art historiography and intellectual history, and digital heritage engagement. Caspar Meyer is Professor of Classical Archaeology and Material Culture at the Bard Graduate Center in New York. His research focuses on the cultural dynamics of craft production in the Aegean city states and among the mobile pastoralists of Eurasia.

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Another area of his interest is the history of the instruments and media which archaeologists have developed to aid the transformation of artefacts into written explanations. He previously taught in London and held research fellowships at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles and the Centre Louis Gernet in Paris. He is editor of W86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture. Kate Morton is a historical and archaeological illustrator. Trained at Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University, and UCL Institute of Archaeology, she has worked at the British Museum since 1994. Her work supports a wide range of research publications, exhibitions, and display projects. Her recent freelance activities include: graphic support for Middle Eastern archaeological site reports and the BM Iraq Scheme Darband-­ i Rania Archaeological Project, where she delivered a graphics training programme to the participants on site; The National Lottery Heritage Fund school projects, where her watercolour reconstructions of historical events, along with classroom drawing sessions, help to bring local history alive for children and their wider community. Vinnie Nørskov is Associate Professor of Classical Archaeology and Director of the Museum of Ancient Art and Archaeology at Aarhus University. Her research focuses on the uses of the classical past, the reception of classical antiquity, and the history of classical scholarship with a special focus on the collecting of and modern trade in Greek painted pottery. Alexia Petsalis-­Diomidis is Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of St Andrews. She has published Truly beyond Wonders: Aelius Aristides and the Cult of Asklepios (2010) and many articles on religion, travel, and the body in the Greek world of the Hellenistic and Roman periods. She also works on the reception of Classical material culture in eighteenth- and nineteenth-­century Europe, and has edited The Classical Vase Transformed: Consumption, Reproduction, and Class in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-­ Century Britain, BICS 63.1 (2020), with E. Hall. Her research has been supported by the Leverhulme Trust (2002–­2005), the Loeb Classical Library Foundation (2020–2021), The British Academy (2021–2022), and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art (2022). Amy C. Smith is Professor of Classical Archaeology at University of Reading, where she also serves as Joint Head of the Department of Classics and Curator of the Ure Museum. Professor Smith received her degrees from Yale (PhD, MPhil, MA) and Dartmouth (BA), and was also educated at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, the American Academy in Rome, and the American Numismatic Society. Professor Smith’s research into the history of collections includes work on the Winckelmann Jubilees. She also researches Classical iconography and its many manifestations, especially in politics and religion, as well as Greek ceramics. Athena Tsingarida is Professor of Ancient Greek Art and Archaeology at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), and the Director of the Belgian School of Archaeology at Athens. She holds degrees in Classical Archaeology and Byzantine Studies from the Université libre de Bruxelles and obtained her DPhil in Ancient History and Classical Archaeology from the University of Oxford (Wolfson College), where she studied as a

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Rhodes scholar. A specialist of Archaic and Classical Greece, her research mainly lies in the fields of ancient Greek pottery, cultural and economic interactions throughout the Mediterranean world, and the reception of Classical art in nineteenth-­century Europe. She is currently co-­directing (with Didier Viviers) the excavations, restoration works, and study seasons in Itanos (Eastern Crete).

L I S T O F I L L U S T RAT I O NS 1.1 A visitor looks at ‘Grumpy Old God, 2010’ by artist Grayson Perry during the press view of the exhibition ‘The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman’ at the British Museum, London, 5 October 2011. REUTERS/Olivia Harris. 6 1.2 Underside of an Attic red-­figure pyxis, c.430–410 bc. BM 1842,0728.924. © The Trustees of the British Museum. 7 1.3 Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Fourth floor, ‘World Ceramics’ display, refurbished 2010. Photograph by Alexia Petsalis-­Diomidis, June 2021. 8 1.4 Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens. Fourth floor, ‘Scenes from daily life in antiquity’, ‘Female activities’ theme. © Nicholas and Dolly Goulandris Foundation-­Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens. (Photographers: Marilena Stafilidou and Yorgos Fafalis). 9 1.5 Mary Katrantzou, SS17, Look 8 ‘Chariot Dress Bluebird’. Courtesy of Mary Katrantzou. 10 1.6 Apotheon, AlienTrap Games, released 3 February 2015. Courtesy of Alientrap. 11 1.7 British School at Athens collection, antiquities handling session with students from King’s College London, November 2013. Photograph: Michael Squire. 13 2.1a–c  Ink and watercolour drawings of a Campanian red-­figure amphora from the archive of Nicolas-­Claude Fabri de Peiresc. 1620s or 1630s, possibly Matthieu Frédeau. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, F 38955–7. 28 2.2 Drawing of two Attic lekythoi from Dal Pozzo Paper Museum. Windsor, Royal Library Inv. 11,349, 11,350. Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021. 30 2.3 Drawings of vessels from Dal Pozzo Paper Museum, Antichità Diverse. Windsor, Royal Library Inv. 10269r. Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021. 31 2.4 Engraving of an Attic red-­figure calyx krater. After Passeri 1767, pl. 7. 35 2.5a Copper engraving of an Attic red-­figure hydria. After Hamilton and Tischbein 1791, pl. 7. 37 2.5b Attic red-­figure hydria showing the Daughters of Pelias. Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum Inv. GR.12.1917. © Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.38 2.6 Ulysses at the Table of Circe. John Flaxman, engraved by James Parker, 1805. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1977.595.53(16). 39 2.7 Beazley working in autumn 1956 at the Museo Archeologico, Ferrara. Photograph by Nereo Alfieri. From the Beazley Archive, Courtesy of the Classical Art Research Centre, University of Oxford. 48

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2.8a Red-­figure cup fragment showing a vase painter. Attributed to the Antiphon Painter, c.480 bc. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, 01.8073.2.8. Photograph © 2022 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 2.8b Detail of cup shown in Figure 2.8a. Photograph reprinted by permission from Springer, Paula Artal-­Isbrand et al., MRS Online Proceedings Library 1319 (2011) © 2022. 3.1 Illustrations of a pelike, from Michel-­Ange de La Chausse, Romanum museum, sive Thesaurus eruditæ antiquitatis (Rome, 1690), 101, pls 1–2. 3.2 Illustrations of a red-­figure pelike and an amphora from the collection of the sculptor François Girardon (1628–1715). De Montfaucon 1719: pl. 71. 3.3 A Paestan red-­figure bell krater attributed to Python. Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology, University of Reading 51.7.11. Copyright University of Reading. 3.4 Illustration of the Paestan bell krater in Figure 3.3. Passeri 1770: pl. 123. 3.5 Illustration of a Nolan amphora, formerly in the collection of the painter Anton Raphael Mengs, attributed to the Dutuit Painter. Winckelmann 1767: pl. 159. 3.6 Illustration of the scene on the Nolan amphora depicted in Figure 3.5. D’Hancarville 1766–7: pl. 3.4. 3.7 Reproduction of a Raphael drawing from the collection of Queen Christina of Sweden. D’Hancarville 1766–7: pl. 2.20. 3.8 Pelike from Nola, attributed to the Niobid Painter. London, British Museum 1772,0320.23 (E381; BAPD 206984). Photograph Museum. 3.9 A page from Flaxman’s sketchbook depicting the pelike shown in Figure 3.8. © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. 3.10 Frontispiece of d’Hancarville 1767, showing the pelike illustrated in Figure 3.8. 3.11 Blue-­and-­white transfer ware dresser plate from the Greek series, after 1806. Photograph by the author, with the kind permission of the Trustees of the Spode Museum Trust. 3.12 Hamilton 1791–5: 1, pl. 31, source of the vase image shown in Figure 3.11. 4.1 Thomas Hope, ‘Athens, A view of the Lysikrates Monument’, c.1787–95. Watercolour on paper 22 × 16 cm. Inv. No. 27241 (cf. Inv. No. 27240). © 2021, Benaki Museum, Athens. 4.2 Joseph Michael Gandy (1771–1843), watercolour on paper of a Greek tomb, c.1804. To be identified either as ‘A Cenotaph’ or as ‘View of a Tomb of a Greek Warrior, thought to be ‘The Tomb of Agamemnon’’. 75 × 130 cm. Private collection. Image courtesy of the Bard Graduate Center, photographer: Miki Slingsby. 4.3 Sir Martin Archer Shee (1769–1850), portrait of Louisa Hope (1791–1851), c.1807. Oil on canvas. 234 × 132 cm. Reproduced by kind permission of The Hon. Mrs Everard de Lisle.

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4.4 Benjamin West (1738–1820), ‘The Hope Family of Sydenham, Kent’, 1802. Oil on canvas. 183.2 × 258.44 cm. MFA 06.2362. Abbott Lawrence Fund. 4.5 Thomas Hope, Household Furniture and Interior Decoration (London, 1807), pl. III. ‘Room containing Greek fictile vases’. Drawing by Thomas Hope, engraved by Edmund Aikin and George Dawe. Art & Architecture Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. 4.6 Thomas Hope, Household Furniture and Interior Decoration (London, 1807), pl. IV. ‘Second room containing Greek vases’. Drawing by Thomas Hope, engraved by Edmund Aikin and George Dawe. Art & Architecture Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. 4.7 Thomas Hope, Household Furniture and Interior Decoration (London, 1807), pl. V. ‘Third room containing Greek vases’. Drawing by Thomas Hope, engraved by Edmund Aikin and George Dawe. Art & Architecture Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. 4.8 Thomas Hope, Costume of the Ancients (London, 1812), vol. 2, p. 168. ‘Grecian ornaments & scrolls’; ‘Drawn & Etched by Thos. Hope’. Jkc22 +812Hb. Special Collections, Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library, Yale University. 4.9 Red-­figure amphora attributed to the Painter of the Louvre Symposion, c.475–425 bc. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 11.17 (Beazley Archive 214410). Side A. 4.10 William Hamilton. 1791–5 [1793–1803], Collection of Engravings from Ancient Vases Mostly of Pure Greek Workmanship Discovered in Sepulchres in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, 3 Vols, Naples. Vol. 1, pl. 4. Courtesy of The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University. 4.11 Thomas Hope, Costume of the Ancients (London, 1812), vol. 1, pl. 102. ‘Greek warrior from one of my fictile vases’. ‘Drawn by Thos Hope’. ‘Engraved by H. Moses’. Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. 4.12 Designs of Modern Costume (London, 1812), commissioned by Thomas Hope, pl. 4. ‘H. Moses del et sc.’ Private Collection. 4.13 Designs of Modern Costume (London, 1812), commissioned by Thomas Hope, pl. 16. ‘H. Moses del et sc.’ Private Collection. 5.1 Jug attributed to the Shuvalov Painter. London, British Museum, E525. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved. 5.2 AEGR I, pl. 26. Courtesy of The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University. 5.3 Hydria, c.440–30 bc. London, British Museum, E221. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved.

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.4 AEGR I, pl. 58. Courtesy of The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University. 5 5.5 Kalyx krater in the Manner of the Peleus Painter. London, British Museum, E460. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved. 5.6 AEGR IV, pl. 31. Courtesy of The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University. 5.7 AEGR III, pl. 92. Courtesy of The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University. 5.8 Lekythos, c.470–460 bc. London, British Museum, D27. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved. 5.9 Lekythos attributed to the Bowdoin Painter. London, British Museum, D22. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved. 5.10a–b  Amphora attributed to Group E, 540 bc. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, 00.330. 5.11 Gerhard, Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder I, pl. I. Courtesy Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library, Yale University. 5.12a–b  Amphora attributed to the Antimenes painter. London, British Museum, B244. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved. 5.13 Gerhard, Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder I, pl. II. Courtesy Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library, Yale University. 5.14 Cup signed by Exekias. Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlung, 8729. Wikimedia Commons. 5.15 Gerhard, Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder I, pl. XLIX. Courtesy Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library, Yale University. 5.16a–b  Pelike attributed to the Painter of the Birth of Athena. London, British Museum, E410. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved. 5.17 Gerhard, Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder I, pl. III. Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library, Yale University. 5.18 Amphora attributed to the Achilles Painter. Vatican City, Museo Gregoriano Etrusco Vaticano, 16571. Scala/Art Resource, NY. 5.19 Gerhard, Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder II, pl. CLXXXIV. Courtesy Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library, Yale University. 6.1 Sectional tracings from the Gerhard’scher Apparat showing an Attic black-­figure amphora attributed to the Painter of Munich 1379. Munich, Antikensammlung 1379 (BAPD 301469). After Gerhard’scher Apparat Berlin XII, 139. Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz. 6.2 Composite tracing based on the sections reproduced in Figure 6.1. After Gerhard’scher Apparat Berlin XII, 18. Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz. 6.3 Ink drawing from the Gerhard’scher Apparat showing an Attic red-­figure cup attributed to the Foundry Painter. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts,

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6.4

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6.9 7.1 7.2

.3 7 7.4 7.5 7.6 .7 7 7.8 7.9 8.1

98.933 (BAPD 204364). After Gerhard’scher Apparat Berlin XXII, 77. Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz. Ink drawing from the Gerhard’scher Apparat representing an Attic red-­figure cup attributed to the Ashby Painter. New York, Metropolitan Museum 1993.11.5 (BAPD 212581). After Gerhard’scher Apparat Berlin XXI, 47.1. Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz. Drawing from the Gerhard’scher Apparat showing an Attic black-­figure amphora attributed to the Painter of Berlin 1686. Taunton, Somerset County Museum (BAPD 320388). After Gerhard’scher Apparat XII, 134. Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz. Drawing from the Gerhard’scher Apparat depicting an Attic red-­figure cup signed Epiktetos. New York, Metropolitan Museum 1978.11.21 (BAPD 200498). After Gerhard’scher Apparat Berlin XVI, 21.1. Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz. Drawing by Carlo Ruspi of Attic red-­figured fragments now in Paris, Cabinet des Médailles de la Bibliothèque nationale 385, 532+, 537+, 583+ (BAPD 201702, 212626, 205063, 203925). After Gerhard’scher Apparat Berlin XXII, 01. Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz. Engraving of an Athenian red-­figure cup showing the introduction of Herakles on Mount Olympos, signed by Sosias as potter. Berlin, Antikensammlung, Berlin, Schloss Charlottenburg, F2278 (BAPD 200108). After Monumenti Inediti dell’Instituto di corrispondenza archeologica I, pl. 24, 1835. Colour lithograph based on the drawings shown in Figures 6.1 and 6.2. After Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder II, pl. CXXI, 2. The London hydria of the Meidias Painter. London, British Museum E224. Photograph courtesy of the British Museum. The Karlsruhe hydria. Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe B36. Courtesy of the Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe. Photograph: Thomas Goldschmidt. The London hydria in FR i, pl. 8. Reproduction: Antonia Weisse. The Duris psykter in FR i, pl. 48. Reproduction: Antonia Weisse. Eduard Gerhard’s 1839 rendering of the London hydria’s upper picture field: Gerhard 1839, pl. I. Reproduction: Antonia Weisse. Eduard Gerhard’s 1839 rendering of the London hydria: Gerhard 1839, pl. II. Reproduction: Antonia Weisse. The Karlsruhe hydria in FR i, pl. 30. Reproduction: Antonia Weisse. Friedrich Creuzer’s 1839 rendering of the Karlsruhe hydria: Creuzer 1839, pl. 1. Reproduction: Johannes Kramer. Eduard Gerhard’s 1845 rendering of the Karlsruhe hydria: Gerhard 1845, pl. D2. Reproduction: Johannes Kramer. Drawing of Herakles and Antaios. Red-­figure calyx krater. Paris, Musée du Louvre G103 (after Klein 1886, 118).

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8.2 Drawing of warriors on black background. Exterior of a red-­figure cup. Paris Musée du Louvre G25 (after Hartwig 1893, pl. IX). 8.3 Drawing by F. Anderson showing a komos on the exterior of a red-­figure cup. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 95.27 (after Hartwig 1893, pl. XLVII). 8.4 Drawing by F. Hauser showing the exterior of a red-­figure eye-­cup. Munich, Antikensammlung 2587 (after Harrison 1895, plate IV). 8.5 Drawing of a gymnastic trainer by J. D. Beazley. Red-­figure amphora. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art 56.171.38, Beazley Archive. Courtesy of the Classical Art Research Centre, University of Oxford. 8.6 Drawing of a komos on a red-­figure hydria. Munich, Antikensammlung 2422 (after Brunn and Lau 1877, pl. XXIX). 8.7 Drawing of a black-­figure exaleiptron with profile of the shape (after Furtwängler and Genick 1883, 18 pl. XXIV). 8.8 Drawing by F. Anderson of a komast on a red-­figure neck-­amphora. London, British Museum E266 (after Beazley 1911, pl. XI). 8.9 Drawing by Émile Gilliéron père of Theseus and Procrustes on the exterior of a red-­figure cup. Athens, National Museum CC1166, former Trikoupis collection (after Harrison 1889, pl. I). 8.10 Restoration proposal by F. Anderson of the exterior of a red-­figure cup showing Theseus’ deeds. Paris, Cabinet des Médailles 536 (after Harrison, 1889, pl. II). 8.11 Beazley’s Notebook 3, p. 39 [1909]. Drawings from an amphora at Harrow, School Museum inv. 55, Beazley Archive. Courtesy of the Classical Art Research Centre, University of Oxford. 8.12 Double page 29 from Beazley’s Notebook 70 [1910]. Drawings of the name vase of the Berlin Painter. Red-­figure amphora. Berlin, Antikensammlung 2160, Beazley Archive. Courtesy of the Classical Art Research Centre, University of Oxford). 9.1 Photograph of a painted scene on an Athenian white-­ground pyxis. BM 1894,0719.1 (Vase D11). © The Trustees of the British Museum. 9.2 Two prints of an Athenian red-­figure kylix showing a sympotic scene. Name vase of Painter of London E100. BM 1867,0508.1032 (Vase E100). © The Trustees of the British Museum. 9.3a Anderson’s drawing of the red-­figure kylix BM 1893,1115.1 (Vase E80). © The Trustees of the British Museum. 9.3b Exterior of the Athenian red-­figure kylix illustrated in Figure 9.3a. BM 1893,1115.1 (Vase E80). © The Trustees of the British Museum. 9.4 Anderson’s drawing of the painted scene on an Athenian black-­figure neck amphora. BM 1836,0224.10 (B244). © The Trustees of the British Museum. 9.5 Strips of acetate taped together form an outer transparent ‘skin’ that can be drawn upon. © The Trustees of the British Museum. 9.6a Line-­block reproductions of inked line drawings by Anderson. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

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Thumbnail aide-­mémoire drawings in the Register of Antiquities. Greece & Rome. Vol. 4. 1 June 1888–31 December 1899. © The Trustees of the British Museum. 9.6c Anderson’s perspective drawing of BM 1894,1101.475 (C855). © The Trustees of the British Museum. 9.7 Line-­block reproduction of Waterhouse’s side view of a Cycladic collared pottery jar with suspension lugs. BM 1912,0831.1 (Vase A304). © The Trustees of the British Museum. 9.8 (a) Compass, (b) Line pen, (c) Mapping pen with a Gillott crow quill nib. © The Trustees of the British Museum. 9.9 Detail of a drawing by Waterhouse, showing Indian ink applied with a line pen and fine brush. © The Trustees of the British Museum. 9.10a Departmental archival print of a Melian bowl. BM 1903,0716.33 (Vase A353). © The Trustees of the British Museum. 9.10b Waterhouse’s line drawing of the Melian bowl in Figure 9.10a. © The Trustees of the British Museum. 9.10c Waterhouse’s drawing on top of a photograph of the same vessel. © The Trustees of the British Museum. 9.11 Bird’s profile drawings of Attic red-­figure cups in CVA British Museum 9, fig. 5. © The Trustees of the British Museum. 9.12 A pencil drawing of the profile and section of an Athenian red-­figure cup. BM 1843,1103.44 (Vase E62). © The Trustees of the British Museum. 9.13a–c An experiment using a forged red-­figure calyx krater. BM 2003,1002.1. © The Trustees of the British Museum. 9.14 Photograph of the Standard Grant Projector in the assembly and instruction manual. © The Trustees of the British Museum. 9.15 Fragments and reconstructed cross section of an Attic red-­figure pelike. BM 2000,1101.26. © The Trustees of the British Museum. 9.16 Different presentations of a forged red-­figure skyphos. BM 1978,0323.1. © The Trustees of the British Museum. 9.17a Working drawing of a red-­figure Lucanian nestoris at 1:2 scale. BM 1865,0103.17 (Vase F176). © The Trustees of the British Museum. 9.17b Digital drawings nearing completion at the ‘layout’ stage. © The Trustees of the British Museum. 9.18 Set square, dividers, bent-­leg caliper, sticks, vernier caliper, ruler, and profile gauge. The skyphos is the same as that shown in Figure 9.16 (BM 1978,0323.1). © The Trustees of the British Museum. 9.19a–b  A bucchero hydria BM 1873,0820.356 (Vase H208). a) Hand inked using a dip pen and a Rotring rapidograph. b) Digitally ‘inked’ using Adobe Illustrator. © The Trustees of the British Museum. 9.20 Reconstruction drawing of a black-­figure Corinthian kylix. BM 1924,1201.1174. © The Trustees of the British Museum. 9.21a Side ‘a’ of the partially reconstructed East Greek black-­figure situla from Tell Dafana. BM 1888,0208.1 (Vase B104). © The Trustees of the British Museum.

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9.21b High-­resolution digital photograph of the figured decoration on the vessel shown in 4.21a. © The Trustees of the British Museum. 9.21c An acetate tracing of the figured decoration on the vessel shown in 4.21a. © The Trustees of the British Museum. 9.21d Digital tracing of the outlines of paint remains on the vessel shown in 4.21a. © The Trustees of the British Museum. 9.21e Line drawing of the remaining decoration on the vessel shown in 4.21a. © The Trustees of the British Museum. 9.21f A colour reconstruction of the figured decoration on the vessel shown in 4.21a. © The Trustees of the British Museum. 10.1 Plate XIII from E. Gerhard, Apulische Vasenbilder des Königlichen Museums zu Berlin (Berlin, 1845): Apulian red-­figure hydria (Berlin, Antikensammlung F 3290). 10.2 Drawing by F. Lissarrague of an Attic black-­figure oenochoe by the Painter of the Half-­Palmettes (Trieste S 456). 10.3 Drawing by R. Reichhold showing the Geryon cup by Euphronios (Munich, Antikensammlungen 8704) published in Furtwängler and Reichhold’s Auswahl hervorragender Vasenbilder (Munich, 1904). 10.4a–c Attic black-­figure amphora with Herakles and Geryon (Louvre F 53): (a) in a drawing from the Gerhard’scher Apparat; (b) as published in Gerhard 1843, pl. CVII; (c) in a modern photograph taken at the Louvre. 10.5 Plate CVIII from E. Gerhard, Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder, hauptsächlich etruskischen Fundorts, Vol. 2: Heroenbilder (Berlin, 1843): Attic black-­figure amphora with Herakles and Geryon. G. Callimanopulos private collection in New York (ex Castle Ashby, Northampton). 10.6a–c  Attic red-­figure chous by the Shuvalov Painter (British Museum E 525), as depicted in the 1801–2 re-­edition of AEGR, pls 101 (= fig. 6a), 102 (= fig. 6b), and 103 (= fig. 6c). 10.7a–c  Attic white-­ground lekythos by the Triglyph Painter (Berlin, Antikensammlung F 2680), in two partial photographic views and a drawing. 10.8 Attic black-­figure amphora with Herakles and Pholos (Bologna, Museo Civico 1436), as illustrated in Gerhard 1843, pl. CXIX. 10.9a–b  Attic red-­figure cup by Makron (Paris, Louvre G 271), interior picture photographed twice under the same electric light, but at a slightly different angle. 10.10 Plate LXXIII from Beazley and Caskey 1963, combining photography and drawing to illustrate a cup by Douris (Boston 00.499). 10.11 Plate V from Beazley and Caskey 1931, combining photography and drawing to illustrate an amphora by the Kleophrades Painter (Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 10.178). 10.12 Plate LXXXIV from Beazley and Caskey 1963, combining photography and drawing to illustrate a lekythos by the Alkimachos Painter (Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 95.39).

242 242 242 242 242

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List of Illustrations  

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11.1 Photographic albums in the Medici Archive. Courtesy of Dr Christos Tsirogiannis.277 11.2 Polaroid photograph from the Medici Archive showing a Paestan bell krater in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1989. Photograph: courtesy Dr Christos Tsirogiannis. 278 11.3a–b  Two versions of a plate showing two red-­figure amphorae in the auction catalogue of Passavant-­Gontard 1929. Photograph a) from catalogue in the DAI, Rome (author); photograph b) from catalogue in Heidelberg (Cassirer and Helbing 1929, plate IV). 283 11.4 Photograph in the auction catalogue of the Lambros and Dattari collections 1912. Photograph: Hirsch 1912, pl. VI. 285 11.5 Interior of one of the rooms in Arnold Ruesch’s house in Zürich. Photograph: Galerie Fischer 1936, pl. 25. 287 11.6a–b  Obverse and reverse of a photograph from the Marshall archive showing a Corinthian pyxis and an Attic red-­figure lekanis. Photograph by author, after John Marshall Archive, British School in Rome ID1147. 290 11.7 Four red-­figure vases on a table. Photograph from the John Marshall Archive in the British School at Rome, 1921. John Marshall Archive ID192, photograph JM[PHP]-­05-­0379. 291 11.8 A group of objects offered to John Marshall in 1914 by the Greek dealer E. P. Triantaphyllos. John Marshall Archive ID580, British School at Rome, photograph JM[PHP]-­15-­1121. 293 11.9 Etruscan impasto bowl on a high foot offered to John Marshall in 1925 by de Angelis. Photograph from the John Marshall Archive in the British School at Rome, 1925. John Marshall Archive, photograph ID237, JM[PHP]-­06-­0460. 294 11.10 Red-­figure bell krater offered to John Marshall by Dr Filippo Falanga. Photograph from the John Marshall Archive, British School at Rome, ID224, JM[PHP]-­06-­0425. 296 12.1 Inked profile drawings of Archaic and Classical Attic cups from the Athenian Agora. From Agora 12.2 (1970), fig. 4. 305 12.2 Carlo Bossoli, pencil drawing of two fragmentary Athenian black-­figure lekythoi from the collection of I. P. Blaramberg, probably 1830s. Archive of Odessa Archaeological Museum. 307

L I S T O F ABB RE VI AT I ONS J. D. Beazley. 1956. Attic Black-­Figure Vase-­Painters (Oxford: Clarendon). T. H. Carpenter, J. D. Beazley, L. Burn, T. Mannack and M. Mendonça. 1989. Beazley Addenda: Additional References to ABV, ARV 2 and Paralipomena, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press). AEGR P.-F. H. d’Hancarville. 1766–7 [1768–76] Antiquités étrusques, grecques, et romaines tirées du cabinet du M. William Hamilton: Collection of Etruscan, Greek and Roman Antiquities from the Cabinet of the Hon. Wm. Hamilton, 4 Vols (Naples: Morelli). ARV J. D. Beazley. 1942. Attic Red-­Figure Vase-­Painters (Oxford: Clarendon). ARV2 J. D. Beazley. 1963. Attic Red-­Figure Vase-­Painters, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press). BAPD Beazley Archive Pottery Database http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/XDB/ ASP/dataSearch.asp. CVA Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. FR (i–iii) A. Furtwängler, K. Reichhold, F. Hauser, E. Buschor, C. Watzinger and R. Zahn. 1904–32. Griechische Vasenmalerei: Auswahl hervorragender Vasenbilder, Serie I–III (Munich: F. Bruckmann). LIMC Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae. Para J. D. Beazley. 1971. Paralipomena: Additions to Attic Black-­Figure Vase-­ Painters and to Attic Red-­Figure Vase-­Painters, 2nd edn (Oxford: Clarendon).

ABV Add2

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Introduction Alexia Petsalis-­Diomidis

This is the first book to be published exclusively on the subject of two-­dimensional depictions of Greek vases. This is remarkable given the proliferation of images of Greek vases or their extracted iconography in art and in publications, ranging from antiquarian luxury folios to recent scholarly textbooks. In addition to the significant presence of such images, the process of their production has been an important feature of artistic and scholarly practice. Many scholars have in fact considered the subject of depictions of Greek vases and brought them into a range of studies. Such discussions feature above all in scholarship on the history of collecting Greek vases. Images of vases, or images which appear to reflect the painted decoration of Greek vases, have been used as evidence for the timeline of the story of discovery, collection, and restoration of these objects, as well as the ‘taste’ of the time.1 They have been examined with a view to reconstructing the sources of individual painters, such as Donatello, Ingres, Alma-­Tadema, and Leighton.2 Discussions of depictions also feature in histories of the scholarship of Greek vases, although there are some surprising silences, revealing the way that images of vases can become almost invisible in the quest for the original object in its antique setting.3 The tracings and drawing practice of the twentieth-­century scholar Sir John Beazley (1885–1970) have   e.g. Masci 2013: 277–82; Bonora 2003; Sparkes 1996a; Lyons 1992; Jenkins 1988; Vickers 1987; Greifenhagen 1939. 2   On Donatello: Greenhalgh 1982. On Ingres: Picard-­Cajan et al. 2006 (particularly contributions by S. Jaubert, C. Jubier-­Galinier, P. Picard-­Cajan, and M. Denoyelle); Denoyelle 2003; Picard-­Cajan 2003. On Alma-­Tadema: Barrow 2001: 44–6, 130–4. On Leighton: Jenkins 1983. 3   e.g. R. M. Cook’s history of the study of Greek vase painting, a fundamental text for classical archaeologists and art historians, makes only cursory reference to illustrations and does not analyse their role in the development of scholarly debates. Cook 1997: 275–311. 1

Alexia Petsalis-­Diomidis, Introduction In: Drawing the Greek Vase. Edited by: Caspar Meyer and Alexia Petsalis-­Diomidis, Oxford University Press. © Caspar Meyer and Alexia Petsalis-­Diomidis 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192856128.003.0001

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received considerable attention, as well as engravings of vases in antiquarian books of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in particular.4 The latter have also been studied as an inspiration both for wall paintings in domestic interiors and for objects such as furniture and ceramics, especially in the designs of Josiah Wedgwood (1730–95).5 The emphasis of these sophisticated scholarly discussions has been on images as historical evidence for the collecting and reception of Greek vases. Rarely have visual reproductions of pots themselves been the centre of the enquiry or been analysed for what they can reveal about the modern artistic or scholarly process.6 That, however, is the approach adopted here, foregrounding the images in their own right and as indicators of creative engagement and intellectual exploration. The volume situates itself at the meeting point of art history, classical reception, and archaeology. Within art history there is a well-­established field of study of what is often called ‘the classical tradition’, a description which carries connotations of an august, unchanging canon passed on more or less intact.7 Recently, a more critical approach has been applied, which sees not so much a passive reception of a ‘classical tradition’ but rather a series of contested, evolving encounters with a diffuse body of material, including previous engagements.8 This volume addresses art history and classical reception scholars interested in this latter approach, offering case studies of images produced from the seventeenth to the twentieth century which are in dialogue both with classical art and with contemporary artistic trends. The volume also addresses archaeologists interested primarily in situating vases in their ancient contexts. Specifically it shows how images produced or used by past scholars have constrained and en­abled interpretations of Greek vases; more generally it offers a heightened awareness that images of archaeological objects are not just illustrations, reflecting or complementing texts, but are themselves active producers of knowledge. Building on earlier scholarship, the volume offers greater breadth and depth of analysis of images of Greek vases, with the aim of opening the subject up further. It is not concerned with ‘accuracy’ or ‘truth’ in these representations, but instead foregrounds the fundamental partiality of every depiction of Greek vases, and the diverse roles these images have played. The case studies of this volume, ranging in their chronological focus from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, purposefully include a wide variety of two-­dimensional media—­ink line drawings, oil paintings, watercolours, engravings and photographs. All graphic depictions tend to begin with drawing as an initial moment of encounter with 4  On Beazley see Rodríguez Pérez 2018; Rouet 2001; Neer 1997; Kurtz 1985. On engravings in antiquarian books see Lissarrague 2003; Coltman 2001. 5 6   Kulke 2003; Arnold 2003; Coltman 2006.   With the notable exception of Sir John Beazley. 7   Silk, Gildenhard, and Barrow 2014. 8   Gilroy Ware 2020; Vout 2018; Squire 2014; Prettejohn 2012.

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the object and, as N. Dietrich argues, the conventions of scholarly photographs of Greek vases are heavily influenced by the tradition of scholarly drawings. The inclusion of images from a range of contexts is also purposeful, setting scholarly uses within a broader context of reception. Material is drawn from scholarly archives and publications (C.  Meyer, A.  Smith, M.-A.  Bernard, K.  Lorenz, A. Tsingarida, N. Dietrich, K. Morton), luxury publications for elite amateurs and collectors (M. Gaifman, C. Meyer, A. Smith), portrait paintings for display (A.  Petsalis-­Diomidis), middling publications for use as models by artists and actors (A.  Petsalis-­ Diomidis), and archives associated with the art market (V.  Nørskov). In this volume the term ‘Greek’ is used broadly and includes black- and red-­figure ceramics produced in ancient Greece and South Italy from the seventh to the fourth centuries bc. While the case studies include some crucial episodes in the history of Greek vase reception, the volume is not comprehensive and there is an emphasis on northern European receptions. It is hoped that the critical approaches applied to this material will be useful to scholars exploring depictions of Greek vases produced in southern Europe and beyond. The discussion which follows places the volume’s case studies against the background of major developments and approaches in the academic study and reception of Greek vases—­it is not a comprehensive history of the historiography of Greek vases. The volume opens with Meyer’s exploration of the practitioner’s perspective and of drawing as a process rather than an end product. The chapter ranges widely from the seventeenth century (Nicolas-­Claude Fabri de Peiresc and Cassiano Dal Pozzo) through the eighteenth (William Hamilton and John Flaxman) to the twentieth (Sir John Beazley), and Meyer makes a number of proleptic connections to other chapters in the volume. He argues that the scholarly practice of drawing Greek vases led to an understanding of drawn lines not only as a representation of imagined space, but also as marks relating to the hand and perception of the artist. This shift from line to hand to senses to person was essential for the creation of the primary scholarly model of attribution to artists which has so dominated the field of ancient pottery studies. More broadly he explores ways in which drawings shape viewers’ perceptions and he shows that the practice of drawing has given rise to new frameworks of interpretation. Thereafter the chapters are arranged essentially chronologically in order to put into high relief the way that the production and reception of images of Greek vases intersect with contemporary intellectual trends and technological developments. The academic study of Greek vases has a history of well over three hundred years. This is substantially shorter than the histories of the study of classical texts, sculpture, and even small-­scale precious antiquities such as coins and gems. The relative lack of interest in Greek vases before the second half of the eighteenth century is itself remarkable. Images of Greek vases in luxury publications began to proliferate towards the end of the eighteenth century. Prior to that,

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such representations had appeared only sporadically in publications on ancient art and antiquities, such as the Comte de Caylus’s Recueil d’antiquitées égyptiennes, étrusques, grecques et romaines (1752–57). The dominant approaches to these objects encompassed both artistic appreciation and scholarly recording and there was no clear demarcation between scholarship, collecting, and publishing. The history of the discovery and receptions of Greek vases in this period unfolded in South Italy and Sicily, both as a source for these objects and as a centre of antiquarian scholarship, and in northern Europe, as material was removed to collections there. At the time Greek vases were often mistakenly thought to be Etruscan because most of them were found in Etruscan tombs in Italy. The histories of collecting and reception in Ottoman Greece, Turkey, and the northern Black Sea shore remained separate, and have yet to be fully explored by scholars, particularly in the period before the mid-­nineteenth century.9 This initial focus on material from Italy has implications not only for the kind of pottery the first histories of Greek vases were based on (predominantly South Italian red-­figure wares and Attic Archaic black- and red-­ figure specimens imported by the Etruscans), but also for the understanding of the cultural identities of those receiving the vases. Since the publication of Johann Joachim Winckelmann’s Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums (1764), a dominant way of approaching Greek vases has been to use their painted decoration as a proxy for Greek polychrome paintings on panels and walls, which no longer exist.10 This misleading approach came about because of the overwhelming desire to see what is described in ancient texts, not least in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History and Philostratus’ Imagines, which rhapsodize about Greek painting. The use of Greek vases as stand-­ins has both elevated them to high art (even though some are, without doubt, poorly crafted and painted) and emphasized their painted decoration at the expense of their three-­ dimensional ceramic utility. Comparisons of Greek vase painting with the work of Raphael, and Greek potteries with Renaissance workshops, subsumed these ancient artefacts into a tradition of Western artistic progress. Smith argues that Winckelmann’s characterization of vase paintings as worthy of Raphael had an impact not only on the status of these artefacts but also on the way that contemporary artists chose to depict them. William Hamilton (1730–1803) was a key figure of the second half of the eighteenth century who both collected and had his vases engraved and published. He is discussed in depth by Gaifman, and he also features in the chapters by Smith, Petsalis-­Diomidis, and Dietrich. Smith and Gaifman explore the way in which, despite the rhetoric of faithful reproduction, Greek vases were transformed into modern forms of framed painting, 9

  Tunkina 2002; Bukina, Petrakova, and Phillips 2013.   See Gaifman, Smith, and Meyer in this volume.

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­ rawing, and illustration by the pervasive practice of excising their painted d decoration from the three-­dimensional vessels and flattening it on the page, and by the use of modern graphic conventions and styles such as shading and neoclassical outline drawing. Dietrich argues that these images reveal an unexpected documentary intent as well as their long-­recognized aesthetic concerns, thus showing that scholarship and art were coexistent, essential elements in one of the most influential eighteenth-­century publications on Greek vases. The history of receptions of Greek vases, encompassing collecting and creative responses, is at least as long as that of academic study. In the eighteenth century receptions included a cascade of reproductions in all sorts of media ranging from luxury and artists’ publications, oil paintings (particularly in portraits), through ceramics, soft furnishings, and sartorial fashion. Yet the study of receptions of Greek vases has a relatively short history, something surely related to the literary origins of this field.11 Classical material culture is receiving increasing attention within this scholarly tradition, although painted vases still lag behind monumental stone sculpture, considered a more prestigious medium. Studies of the history of collections of vases are proliferating, and more recently the role of non-­elites and non-­Western communities in (re)productions and consumption of cheaper products is also being explored.12 Petsalis-­Diomidis’s chapter on Thomas Hope (1769–1831) explores two-­dimensional receptions of Greek vases in a variety of graphic styles and their use in subsequent three-­dimensional designs for clothing and furniture. Hope’s explicit intention in his affordable publications was to make his designs accessible to artists and craftsmen who would use them to transform the aesthetics and morals of British society. These images mediated an embodied engagement with Greek vases through dress, furniture, interiors, and even movement. This chapter thus discusses an instance of a particularly interesting strand of vase reception, that of embodied imitation of, on the one hand, the figures depicted on vases and, on the other hand, the craftspeople who produced the vessels. Other notable examples of embodied imitation of painted scenes include the ‘attitudes’ of Emma Hamilton (1765–1815), and the choreographed dances and production of woven textiles at the Delphic festivals by Eva Palmer Sikelianos (1874–1952).13 An instance of the re-­enactment of ancient production of vases is Wedgwood and Bentley’s inscription of ‘artes Etruriae renascuntur’ (‘the arts   e.g. Bérard 2014; Bourgeois and Denoyelle 2013; Heringman 2013: 125–218; Coltman 2012 and 2006; Brylowe 2008; Masci 2008; Zambon 2006; Nørskov 2002; Tsingarida 2002; Lyons 1997; Jenkins and Sloan 1996. 12   Petsalis-­Diomidis with Hall 2020; Petsalis-­Diomidis 2019. 13   On Emma Hamilton see Slaney 2020; Brylowe 2008; Touchette 2000. On Palmer Sikelianos see Leontis 2019, esp. 3 (poses after the figure of Sappho on an Athenian red-­figure hydria). Delphic festivals in 1927 and 1930. 11

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F igure 1.1.  A visitor looks at ‘Grumpy Old God, 2010’ by artist Grayson Perry during the press view of the exhibition ‘The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman’ at the British Museum, London, 5 October 2011. REUTERS/Olivia Harris.

of Etruria are reborn’) on their ‘first day’s’ vases of 1769.14 While modern studio potters have moved away from the reproduction of Greek vases, they frequently draw inspiration from them and their producers. In 2011–12 the artist Grayson Perry (b.1960) curated an exhibition at the British Museum whose title, ‘The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman’, evokes that connection with practitioners of the past.15 His own work of art in the exhibition, ‘Grumpy Old God’ (2010) evokes the world of ancient Greece in a number of ways: in its ceramic material, its shape (a kalpis), its red and black colour scheme, and its small-­scale figured decoration (Figure 1.1). At the same time it challenges the dominance of clas­ sic­al art in the British Museum and in Western culture more broadly through its   Dolan 2005: 219.  Exhibition at the British Museum, 6 October 2011–19 February 2012; see Perry 2011. Other ceramicists engaging with ancient Greek pottery traditions include: Isatu Hyde, British potter and designer, who is inspired by Minoan forms https://livetheprocess.com/blogs/physical/finding-­form-­ with-­isatu-­hyde?_pos=1&_sid=5fa6f16c0&_ss=r; she used a 2011 Ferdynand Zweig Travel Scholarship for self-­led research into Minoan pottery in Athens and on the island of Crete. Roberto Lugo, Puerto Rican American ceramic artist, spoken word poet, activist, and educator, is quoted in an interview as follows: ‘It’s funny that in contemporary life we think pottery shouldn’t be political, but ancient Greek pottery was all about politics, war, sex, and violence. In so many ways I am following the tradition in that work, but it’s about what’s going on today.’ See https://bmoreart.com/2018/07/criticality-­ and-­ ceramics-­at-­the-­walters.html and https://nmaahc.si.edu/latinx/roberto-­lugo. See also Mathieu 2003. 14 15

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playful depiction of Ian Jenkins (1953–2020), curator in the Department of Greece and Rome at the time, brandishing a sword in defence of this classical legacy. Beyond embodied imitations the reception of Greek vases encompasses all creative responses (including images) and the physical treatment of the vessels. The latter includes restoration choices (overpainting, restoration of vessels from fragments with the addition of extensive and often concealed modern parts) and the widespread practice of painting information onto the vessels (the initials of collectors, the provenance of the vase and date of discovery, collection or museum numbers) (Figure  1.2).16 Display strategies, while ephemeral, are also acts of reception in the way that they construct the meaning of vessels in radically different ways. For example, the display of Thomas Hope’s Greek vases in his London house underlined their South Italian funerary context of ancient de­pos­ ition and modern discovery, as Petsalis-­Diomidis argues. Today the display of

F igure 1.2.  Underside of an Attic red-­figure pyxis, c.430–410 bc. Marked in black ink by the excavator and collector Thomas Burgon (1787–1858) ‘ATHENS’ (the place of excavation), ‘TB 1813’ (his initials and the date of excavation), ‘245’ (Burgon collection number); and subsequently marked ‘924’ (the British Museum accession number). H 7.62 cm. BM 1842,0728.924. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

  e.g. Kästner and Saunders 2016; Bentz and Kästner 2007.

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F igure 1.3.  Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Fourth floor, ‘World Ceramics’ display, refurbished 2010. A global context of production is suggested by the display of ancient Greek ceramics together with ancient artefacts from Europe, the Middle East, Egypt, Cyprus, East Asia, India, and South America. Photograph by Alexia Petsalis-­Diomidis, June 2021.

Greek vases next to pottery from different cultures, such as in the Victoria and Albert Museum, focuses attention on the process of production and craftsmanship (Figure 1.3), while ‘ancient life’ displays in archaeological museums typ­ic­ al­ly foreground Greek vases in everyday or ritual contexts of use (Figure 1.4).17 Both physical interventions in vases and display strategies are of course embedded in their particular eras and cultural contexts. Creative imitations of vases have also developed in step with changes in ma­ter­ ial technologies of reproduction. Examples include the invention of porcelain and glazes, for instance by Josiah Wedgwood,18 commercial clothes printing, as used extensively in Mary Katrantzou’s spring summer 2017 collection inspired by Greek vases as well as Minoan frescoes (Figure  1.5), computer-­generated imagery (CGI) in film, such as Disney’s 1997 Hercules, in educational tools, like

  On the role of Greek vases in structuring ‘ancient life’ museum displays, see Meyer 2022.   Dolan 2005: 142–51 and Reilly 1994.

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Figure 1.4.  Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens. Fourth floor, ‘Scenes from daily life in antiquity’, ‘Female activities’ theme. Ceramic vessels are placed within contexts of daily use (the bottle feeder, rattle, and toys) while others (the funerary lekythoi and sympotic cup) are included for their prominent figural decoration on the subject of women. © Nicholas and Dolly Goulandris Foundation-­Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens. (Photographers: Marilena Stafilidou and Yorgos Fafalis).

‘Panoply Vase Animation Project’,19 and in gaming, for instance ‘Apotheon’, which uses the colour scheme and iconographical features of Greek vases (Figure 1.6).20 Greek vases have thus become part of a broader popular culture. Receptions can be layered and may cut across artistic and scholarly boundaries—­ for example, Mary Katrantzou’s ‘Chariot Dress Bluebird’, draws on Spode’s ‘Greek’ design of 1806 (see Figure 3.11), itself based on engravings in Thomas Kirk’s 1804 Outlines from the Figures and Compositions upon the Greek, Roman, and Etruscan Vases of the Late Sir William Hamilton, in turn based on engravings in d’Hancarville’s AEGR 1766–7 [1768–76]. Over the course of the nineteenth century Greek vases were increasingly depicted in publications more clearly defined as scholarly. Images were produced to convey detailed information about typology, technology, subject matter, and preservation, side by side with key ‘metadata’ concerning the object’s scale, provenance, and age. A gradual standardization of presentation occurred within the context of the foundation of public universities and other research bodies across European countries. The chapters by Bernard, Gaifman, and Lorenz offer case studies of the complex relationship between depictions   http://www.panoply.org.uk; Nevin 2015.   Paprocki 2020; review of ‘Apotheon’ https://www.gameinformer.com/games/apotheon/b/pc/ archive/2015/02/03/apotheon-­review-­game-­informer.aspx. 19 20

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F igure 1.5.  Mary Katrantzou, SS17, Look 8 ‘Chariot Dress Bluebird’. The dress includes iconographical elements from Hamilton’s vases filtered through Spode’s ‘Greek’ design of 1806 (see Figure 3.11), itself based on engravings in Thomas Kirk’s 1804 Outlines from the Figures and Compositions upon the Greek, Roman, and Etruscan Vases of the Late Sir William Hamilton, in turn based on engravings in d’Hancarville 1766–7 [1768–76]. Courtesy of Mary Katrantzou.

of Greek vases and evolving academic discourse. Bernard explores the archive of drawings of Eduard Gerhard (1795–1867). His project of documenting Attic painted pottery from the newly discovered Etruscan cemeteries to the north of Rome became the testing ground for his ‘monumental philology’. This project of documentation became urgent as the market for vases from Vulci and Cerveteri gathered pace in the late 1820s. Bernard argues that Gerhard’s practice went well beyond the recording of newly discovered objects to a novel conception of archaeology, as a discipline equal to philology in scientific rigour, with its own institutions, corpora, and conventions. Gaifman also explores Gerhard’s engagement with Greek vases, analysing his use of images of vases in Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder (1840–58). She shows that this seminal publication marks an important development towards a dis­ cip­lin­ary study of iconography as a ‘science of images’. Figured decoration on

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F igure 1.6.  Apotheon, AlienTrap Games, released 3 February 2015. Courtesy of Alientrap.

vases was no longer offered as inspiration for modern artists and designers to draw on, but instead was presented as evidence for the mythological and ritual traditions of the Greeks, to be analysed by scholars alongside texts. The chromo­litho­graphs in Gerhard’s book accordingly emphasized the clarity and consistency of vase paintings as ‘legible’ images. The topic of Lorenz’s case study is an influential publication about Greek vases produced by the archaeologist Adolf Furtwängler (1853–1907) in collaboration with the artist Karl Reichhold (1856–1919). Lorenz shows how Reichhold’s images are shaped by Furtwängler’s interest in the narrative possibilities of the figured scenes. In so doing she demonstrates that images of Greek vases can both be determined by scholarly approaches and themselves shape the ideas of later scholars. Lorenz’s chapter deals with an example of scholarly engagement with vase iconography. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries there was a prevalent practice of connecting revered classical texts—­particularly those about myth and religious ritual—­with painted iconography and vase inscriptions.21 Frequently vase iconography was used merely to illustrate classical texts whose primacy was taken for granted. This is no longer common practice but the use of images as historical evidence in conjunction with texts, or to stand in for lost texts, con­ tinues in a variety of modes.22 In this regard, traditionally marginalized groups, 21   Vase inscriptions have been studied in relation to the development of the Greek language, as well as for information on vase producers, users, and ‘readers’ (e.g. names of painters and potters, owners and ‘kalos’ honorands, dedicatory inscriptions), and on markets (e.g. marks on the underside of vases analysed as evidence for trade). See Wachter 2001; Immerwahr 1990; Johnston 2006 and 1979. 22   For more recent and nuanced reflections on the relationship between texts and vase painting, see e.g. Giuliani 2013; Squire 2009; Goldhill and Osborne 1994.

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namely women, children, enslaved people, black people, and non-­Greeks, whose voices are very hard to find in ancient Greek texts, have come under particular and often fruitful scrutiny.23 Everyday objects which rarely survive, such as textiles, as well as activities such as sex, which do not feature prominently in texts and then only in particular kinds of discourses, leaving much unsaid, have also been the focus of studies.24 These fall broadly into a tradition of using vase paintings for evidence of ‘everyday life’, one which stretches back at least as far as the mid-­nineteenth century.25 At the same time images on pots have been mined by social historians exploring areas of life with significant and sometimes abundant related textual evidence, including the theatre,26 athletics,27 political and social practices,28 and religious cult.29 The tendency to view pot images as less complicated forms of evidence than texts, almost as snapshots of ancient life rather than artistic representations with their concomitant partisan choices and excisions, is far less prevalent now.30 The Paris–­Lausanne structuralist school which flourished in the 1980s was transformative in this regard, bringing art historical approaches into conversation with material culture and social history.31 The relationship of pots to texts has also been radically revised: images are now seen rather as a mode of expression—­a medium—­independent of texts, or in dialogue with them.32 A dominant approach in the interpretation of iconography is that images in embodied use on artefacts helped construct and mediate relationships in society. Users (viewers and handlers) rather than producers (potters and painters), and contexts of function rather than of production, are increasingly the focus of attention. The study of the embodied use of figured pots at the symposion, the sanctuary, and the tomb has thrived in the last thirty years.33

  On these groups and their depiction on vases see e.g. Bundrick 2012; Lewis 2002 and 1998–9; Ferrari 2002 (women); Derbew 2018; Tanner 2010 (black people); Neils and Oakley 2003 (children). See also Mayor, Colarusso, and Saunders 2014 and Murray, Chorgay, and MacPherson 2020 on the diverse identities of vase painters and potters. 24   Lear and Cantarella 2008; Kilmer 1993; Shapiro 1992; Sutton 1992; Dover 1978. For critiques of histories of sexuality written from vase images, see Meyer 2018; Osborne 2018b; Parker 2015; Davidson 2011; Ferrari 2003; Bažant 1980. 25   Oakley 2020; Panofka 1843. 26   Taplin 2007 and 1993; Green 1999; Giuliani 1996 and 1995; Trendall and Webster 1971. 27   Golden 2008. 28   Steiner 2021; Osborne 2018a; Mösch-­Klingele 2006; Neer 2002; Oakley and Sinos 1993. 29   Gaifman 2018a; Peirce 1993. 30   Although empiricist approaches persist, e.g. Matheson 2009. 31   Frontisi-­Ducroux 1995; Institut d’archéologie et al. 1984. More recently, e.g. Barringer 2001. 32   Goldhill and Osborne 1994 (contributions by F. Lissarrague, H. Hoffmann, J. Henderson); Osborne 2011. 33   Gaifman and Platt 2018; Gaifman 2018b; Dietrich 2017; Shipley 2015; Lissarrague 2015 and 1987; Hedreen 2015; Osborne 2014; Topper 2012; Stansbury-­O’Donnell 2006. 23

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F igure 1.7.  British School at Athens collection, antiquities handling session with students from King’s College London, November 2013. Photograph: Michael Squire.

An increased emphasis on object handling in university teaching and in public museums is arguably related to the academic study of embodied use (Figure 1.7).34 There is both intellectual and emotional intensity in connecting haptically to craftspeople and past users, through elements like the incised preliminary drawings and fingerprints of potters and painters, or through the imitation of the embodied movement of past users, despite the precautions routinely imposed by museums, such as the wearing of gloves and the restrictions on holding vessels by their handles.   Levent and Pascual-­Leone 2014; Chatterjee 2008; Classical Collections Network, focusing on connecting collections of antiquities used in teaching, was launched in the UK in 2018 https://connectingclassicalcollections.wordpress.com. 34

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An influential aspect of a fundamentally art historical approach to Greek vases has been the search for painters, and to a lesser degree potters. This line of study initially, in the nineteenth century, identified and analysed the works of painters who mostly signed their works (‘masters’), and then moved on, with the towering figure of Sir John Beazley, to the productions of nameless craftsmen. The practice of drawing among scholars and their collaborators played a key role in these studies. Tsingarida discusses Beazley’s freehand sketches and tracings of vase painting with a view to identifying the origins of his method among nineteenth-­century specialists in England and continental Europe. Attributing vase paintings to individual painters is still an academic practice, and monographs devoted to individual painters are still being produced (though no longer fashionable). Beazley’s practice of tracing vase paintings (and therefore re-­embodying the physical movements of the painters) was driven as much by the desire to get closer to the personalities of the painters who produced them as it was by the wish to classify the vase paintings. This personal, experiential approach can also be identified in the area of experimental archaeology, which has seen a surge of interest in reconstructing the processes of ancient ceramic crafts, not least to explore their sensory dimensions. This has included the operation of the potter’s wheel by hand, preliminary ‘sketching’ on vessels, slip preparation and application, and kiln construction.35 Morton offers a different perspective, that of an experienced illustrator at the Department of Greece and Rome in the British Museum. She explores the drawing practices of her predecessors in this institution, discussing their equipment and working methods, now mostly considered obsolete. She contrasts the in­tim­ ate knowledge she is able to acquire through her time-­consuming encounters with vases with the automated ‘data capture’ which digital technology permits with increasing rapidity and, sometimes, minimal sensory experience of the ori­ gin­al object. The chapters of Tsingarida and Morton, and also Meyer, make a case for approaching drawings of vases (and indeed other archaeological objects) not as representations in the conventional sense of the term, but rather as inflection points between past and present experiences: between the experiences of modern draughtspersons on the one hand and of the ancient potters and consumers on the other. Such an approach, which emphasizes embodied graphic practice and physical engagement with objects, implicitly questions the cognitive bias in traditional theories of image-­making. The final two chapters of the volume by Dietrich and Nørskov are concerned with photography and Greek vases, focusing on the twentieth century. They dispel any notion that the relationship between drawing and photography was   Balachandran 2019; Hasaki 2019; Pulitani, Caldana, et al. 2017; Artal-­Isbrand, Klausmeyer, and Murray 2011; Malafouris 2007. 35

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straightforward or predictable. Early applications of the technology (from daguerreotypes to paper and glass-­based products) already offered unprecedented clarity and resolution in transferring optical impressions onto a fixed medium. With the introduction of celluloid film and halftone reproduction in the late nineteenth century photography became common in print publications of Greek vases. Yet drawings of Greek vases did not become obsolete. As these two chapters demonstrate, far from opening a transparent ‘window’ on vases, photography rather establishes a particular visual relationship between the photographer and the photographed object. A photograph subsequently forces a viewer to look at the photographed object from the same perspective as that adopted by the photographer who took the picture. A photograph of a vase, then, reproduces not only the vase but also the particular visual relationship between the photographer and the vase at a specific moment in time. In this respect photographs and drawings of Greek vases, and indeed other archaeological objects, have much in common. These two chapters should be seen against a background of contemporary developments in the study and reception of Greek vases. Increasingly in the twentieth century, more overtly ‘archaeological’ approaches were intertwined with Beazley’s framework, such as the correlation of pottery shapes and findspots to iconography and workshops, or departed from it in radical ways, for example in work on sherd distribution within particular contexts or regions, on the trade and reception of vases beyond the Greek world and on the status of Greek vases in Athenian society.36 The scope of enquiry into Greek vases was significantly broadened. The work of John Boardman, which has dominated Greek vase scholarship in the English-­speaking world for the best part of the last forty years, combines the study of the development of vase painting, often in relation to other forms of Greek and non-­Greek art, with the study of pottery distribution and the history of Greek trade and settlement overseas.37 The study of vases within archaeology has also been affected by the transition from text-­ driven approaches to those which derive their methodological models from prehistory and ethnoarchaeology. While the excavated potsherd has traditionally been seen as a chronological marker linking the relative dates of the archaeological ‘record’ to the absolute dates of history, chronology increasingly is only a starting point for exploring other aspects of ancient life—­from regional patterns of exchange and consumption to household production, storage, and foodways. As archaeologists have reclaimed ‘Greek vases’ from art historians as

36   Bundrick 2019; Tonglet 2018; La Genière 2014; Schmidt and Stähli 2012; Lynch 2011; Morgan 2004; Fless 2002; Reusser 2002; Lewis 2003; Osborne 2001 and 1996; Sparkes 1996b; Vickers and Gill 1994; Cook 1997 [1960]; Robertson 1992. 37   e.g. Boardman 2001 and 1964.

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‘Greek pots’,38 there has been less concern with the individual objects’ design than with questions of typology, quantification, use-­wear, and distribution. Yet despite these departures from the art historical agenda and the use of new methods, the chapters by Dietrich and Nørskov demonstrate some surprising continuities in the representation of Greek vases in photographs. Dietrich’s examination of how photography is used in academic publications of painted vases reveals the invisible effort specialists expend in producing images that suit the dominant, art historical needs of scholarship. The task of stylistic and iconographic comparison often calls for images that replicate the visual characteristics of drawn illustrations from an era before the widespread availability of pho­tog­ raphy. The resulting photographs, therefore, in line with earlier drawings of vases, tend to obscure the relationship between the painted decoration and the three-­dimensional vessel. Yet, as Dietrich shows, photographic reproduction is in fact eminently suited to bringing out the connection between decoration and ceramic body in different viewing conditions. Nørskov analyses photographs that adhere to very different but no less stringent conventions. In contrast to academic illustrations, photographs produced for the antiquities market tend to stress the physical presence of vases as objects with decorative potential. Nørskov uncovers a broad range of photographic strategies which dealers have devised to advertise their goods among different segments of their clientele—­some mimicking the public aura of museum spaces or elite reception rooms, others the bohemian intimacy of an artist’s studio or private study. She also explores the role played by the photograph as a physical object in the illicit traffic of antiquities, specifically in relation to the circulation of polaroids in the second half of the twentieth century. Both Dietrich and Nørskov show that a variety of conventions of representation have been silently embedded in photographic images of Greek vases. As Dietrich points out, some institutions specializing in scholarly publications of Greek vases offer guidelines on what illustrations they require and how best they can be achieved, but rarely do they state why a particular convention has been adopted. A central task of this volume is to make the underlying aims and conventions of representation visible. In the afterword Meyer draws conclusions and casts an eye beyond drawing and photography of Greek vases to the digital medium of the twentieth-­first century.

38   As Zosia Archibald has argued, the agenda of the study of Greek vases was set by art historians rather than archaeologists from the outset and well into the twentieth century. Archibald 2012.

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Mathieu, P. 2003. Sex Pots: Eroticism in Ceramics (London: A. and C. Black). Mayor, A., J.  Colarusso, and D.  Saunders. 2014. ‘Making Sense of Nonsense Inscriptions Associated with Amazons and Scythians on Athenian Vases’, Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens 83.3: 447–93. Meyer, C. 2018. ‘Foucault’s Clay Feet: Ancient Greek Vases in Modern Theories of Sex’, History Workshop Journal 85: 143–68. Meyer, C. 2022. ‘Domesticating the Ancient House: The Archaeology of a False Analogy’, in J. Baird and A. Pudsey (eds), Housing in the Ancient Mediterranean World: Material and Textual Approaches (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 68–95. Morgan, C. 2004. Attic Fine Pottery of the Archaic to Hellenistic Periods in Phanagoria (Leiden: Brill). Mösch-Klingele, R. 2006. Die loutrophóros im Hochzeits- und Begräbnisritual des 5. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. in Athen (Bern; New York: P. Lang). Murray, S. C., I. Chorghay, and J. MacPherson. 2020. ‘The Dipylon Mistress: Social and Economic Complexity, the Gendering of Craft Production, and Early Greek Ceramic Material Culture’, American Journal of Archaeology 124.2: 215–44. Neer, R. 1997. ‘Beazley and the Language of Connoisseurship’, Hephaistos 15: 7–30. Neer, R. 2002. Style and Politics in Athenian Vase-Painting: The Craft of Democracy, ca. 530–460 b.c.e. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Neils, J., and J.  H.  Oakley (eds). 2003. Coming of Age in Ancient Greece: Images of Childhood from the Classical Past (New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press in association with the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH). Nevin, S. 2015. ‘Animations of Ancient Vase Scenes in the Classics Classroom’, Journal of Classics Teaching 16: 32–7. Nørskov, V. 2002. Greek Vases in New Contexts: The Collecting and Trading of Greek Vases: An Aspect of the Modern Reception of Antiquity (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press). Oakley, J. H. 2020. A Guide to Scenes of Daily Life on Athenian Vases (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press). Oakley, J. H., and R. H. Sinos. 1993. The Wedding in Ancient Athens (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press). Osborne, R. 1996. ‘Pots, Trade and the Archaic Greek Economy’, Antiquity 70: 31–44. Osborne, R. 2001. ‘Why Did the Athenian Pots Appeal to the Etruscans?’, World Archaeology 33: 277–95. Osborne, R. 2011. The History Written on the Classical Greek Body (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Osborne, R. 2014. ‘Intoxication and Sociality: The Symposium in the Ancient Greek World’, Past & Present 222., Issue Suppl. 9: 34–60. Osborne, R. 2018a. The Transformation of Athens: Painted Pottery and the Creation of Classical Greece (Princeton, NJ; Oxford: Princeton University Press). Osborne, R. 2018b. ‘Imaginary Intercourse: A History of Greek Pederasty’, in, D. Allen P. Christesen, and P. Millett (eds), How to Do Things with History: New Approaches to Ancient Greece (New York: Oxford University Press), 313–38. Panofka, T. 1843. Bilder Antiken Lebens (Berlin: Reimer). Paprocki, M. 2020. ‘Mortal Immortals: Deicide of Greek Gods in Apotheon and its Role in the Greek Mythic Storyworld’, in C. Rollinger (ed.), Classical Antiquity in Video Games Playing with the Ancient World (London: Bloomsbury Academic), 193–204.

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Parker, H. 2015. ‘Vaseworld: Depiction and Description of Sex at Athens’, in R. Blondell and K. Ormand (eds), Ancient Sex: New Essays (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press), 23–142. Peirce, S. 1993. ‘Death, Revelry, and “Thysia” ’, Classical Antiquity 12.2: 219–66. Perry, G. 2011. The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman (London: British Museum Press). Petsalis-Diomidis, A. 2019. ‘Local Engagements with Ancient Greek Vases in Ottoman and Revolutionary Greece c.1800–1833’, in E. Richardson (ed.), Classics in Extremis: The Edges of Classical Reception (London: Bloomsbury Academic), 35–58. Petsalis-Diomidis, A., with E.  Hall (eds). 2020. The Classical Vase Transformed: Consumption, Reproduction, and Class in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Britain. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, themed issue 63.1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Picard-Cajan, P. 2003. ‘Le vase grec dans l’imaginaire d’Ingres’, in P.  Rouillard and A. Verbanck-Piérard (eds), Le vase grec et ses destins (Munich: Biering & Brinkmann), 299–314. Picard-Cajan, P., et al. 2006. Ingres et l’antique: l’illusion grecque (Arles: Actes sud). Prettejohn, E. 2012. The Modernity of Ancient Sculpture: Greek Sculpture and Modern Art from Winckelmann to Picasso (London: I. B. Tauris). Pulitani, G., I. Caldana, et al. 2017. ‘Performances of (and on) the Greek Potter’s Wheels: An Experimental Project’, Eidola 14: 35–56. Reilly, R. 1994. Wedgwood Jasper (New York: Thames and Hudson). Reusser, C. 2002. Verbreitung und Funktionen attischer Keramik im Etrurien des 6. und 5. Jahrhunderts vor Christus (Zürich: Akanthus). Robertson, M. 1992. The Art of Vase-Painting in Classical Athens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Rodríguez Pérez, D. 2018. ‘Sir John Beazley’s Notebooks: A New Resource for the Study of Athenian Figure-Decorated Pottery’, Hesperia 87.4: 743–809. Rouet, P. 2001. Approaches to the Study of Attic Vases: Beazley and Pottier (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Schmidt, S., and A. Stähli.  2012. Vasenbilder im Kulturtransfer: Zirkulation und Rezeption griechischer Keramik im Mittelmeerraum (Munich: C. H. Beck). Shapiro, H. A. 1992. ‘Eros in Love: Pederasty and Pornography in Greece’, in A. Richlin (ed.), Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome (New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press), 53–72. Shipley, L. 2015. Experiencing Etruscan Pots: Ceramics, Bodies and Images in Etruria (Oxford: Archaeopress). Silk, M. S., I. Gildenhard, and R. J. Barrow.  2014. The Classical Tradition: Art, Literature, Thought (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell). Slaney, H. 2020. ‘Pots in Performance: Emma Hamilton’s Attitudes’, in A.  PetsalisDiomidis with E. Hall (eds), The Classical Vase Transformed: Consumption, Reproduction, and Class in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Britain. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, themed issue 63.1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 110–22. Sparkes, B. A. 1996a. ‘Commonly Called Etruscan Vases’, in B. A. Sparkes, The Red and the Black (London; New York: Routledge), 34–63. Sparkes, B. A. 1996b. The Red and the Black: Studies in Greek Pottery (London; New York: Routledge).

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Squire, M. 2009. Image and Text in Graeco-Roman Antiquity (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press). Squire, M. 2014. ‘Theories of Reception’, in C. Marconi (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Art and Architecture (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 637–61. Stansbury-O’Donnell, M. 2006. Vase Painting, Gender, and Social Identity in Archaic Athens (New York; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Steiner, D. 2021. Choral Constructions in Greek Culture: The Idea of the Chorus in the Poetry, Art and Social Practices of the Archaic and Early Classical Periods (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Sutton, R. 1992. ‘Pornography and Persuasion on Attic Pottery’, in A. Richlin (ed.), Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome (New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press), 3–35. Tanner, J. 2010. ‘Race and Representation in Ancient Art: Black Athena and After’, in D. Bindman and H. L. Gates Jr. (eds), The Image of the Black in Western Art, Vol. 1: From the Pharaohs to the Fall of the Roman Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 1–39. Taplin, O. 1993. Comic Angels and Other Approaches to Greek Drama through VasePaintings (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Taplin, O. 2007. Pots and Plays: Interaction between Tragedy and Greek Vase-Painting of the Fourth Century bc (Los Angeles, CA: The J. Paul Getty Museum). Tonglet, D. 2018. Le kyathos attique de Madame Teithurnai: échanges artisanaux et interactions culturelles entre Grecs et Étrusques en Méditerranée archaïque (Brussels: Centre de Recherches en Archéologie et Patrimoine). Topper, K. 2012. The Imagery of the Athenian Symposium (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Touchette, L.-A. 2000. ‘Sir William Hamilton’s “Pantomime Mistress”: Emma Hamilton and her Attitudes’, in C. Hornsby (ed.), The Impact of Italy: The Grand Tour and Beyond (London: British School at Rome), 123–46. Trendall, A., and T. B. L. Webster.  1971. Illustrations of Greek Drama (London: Phaidon). Tsingarida, A. 2002. ‘ “Nul ne sait qui n’essaye”: Alphonse van Branteghem et sa collection de vase grecs’, in A.  Tsingarida and D.  Kurtz (eds), Appropriating Antiquity/Saisir l’antique: collections et collectionneurs d’antiques en Belgique et en Grande-Bretagne au XIXe siècle (Brussels: Timperman), 245–73. Tunkina, I.  V. 2002. Russkaia nauka o klassicheskikh drevnostiakh iuga Rossii (XVIII–­seredina XIX v.) (Saint Petersburg: Nauka). Vickers, M. J. 1987. ‘Value and Simplicity: Eighteenth-Century Taste and the Study of Greek Vases’, Past & Present 116: 98–137. Vickers, M. J., and D. W. J. Gill. 1994. Artful Crafts: Ancient Greek Silverware and Pottery (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Vout, C. 2018. Classical Art: A Life History from Antiquity to the Present (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Wachter, R. 2001. Non-Attic Greek Vase Inscriptions (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Zambon, A. 2006. ‘Fauvel et les vases grecs’, Journal des Savants 1: 3–63.

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Why Drawing Still Matters Connecting Hands and Minds in the Study of Greek Vases Caspar Meyer

Greek painted vases are problematic finds for many field archaeologists. All too often, decorated fine wares garner all the attention in excavation trenches while plain ceramics intended for cooking, eating, and other everyday tasks are treated as mass-produced items that do not receive analysis as individual objects. Fragments of special interest tend to appear in separate publications years before coarse pithoi, chytrai, and roof tiles are even quantified or sampled in site volumes, if such work is even undertaken. For serious archaeologists this outcome is clearly unacceptable. An excavation of academic value should treat all ceramic finds just as it does any other residue of the past, as archaeological entities to be recorded as evidence of ancient life. At the same time, vase specialists are too easily dismissed as obstinate aesthetes. They will point out in their defence that their steadfast devotion to fine craft items has enabled finds from across the ancient world to be connected to the careers of individual potters and painters, allowing for the establishment of a chronological precision that provides the basis for local accounts of cultural practice and change. One justification for publishing another book on Greek vases is the op­por­tun­ ities the objects present for overcoming simplistic divisions between arch­aeo­ logic­al and art historical approaches. A closer look reveals that both disciplines face related challenges; that painted pottery has motivated innovative responses to those challenges; and that the solutions adopted by either side cannot be fully understood without appreciating the challenges faced by the other. To get to grips with those challenges, let me begin by underscoring the strangeness of Greek vases, especially the level of skilled handiwork expended in decorating Caspar Meyer, Why Drawing Still Matters: Connecting Hands and Minds in the Study of Greek Vases In: Drawing the Greek Vase. Edited by: Caspar Meyer and Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis, Oxford University Press. © Caspar Meyer and Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192856128.003.0002

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these highly standardized objects of use. The labour-intensive application of freehand painting rarely resulted in figured decoration more sophisticated than that of the mould-made relief wares dominating Hellenistic and Roman fine ware production. If variety in décor was a reason for painting by hand, the surviving material overall does not suggest that it was consistently pursued. As some modern observers have claimed, the repetitive and unremarkable character of much of the vase paintings, in fact, implies that the artisans worked from cartoons originally designed for more precious metal vessels.1 The ambiguous status of painted vases between exceptional artworks and mass-produced articles is at the core of this chapter. This ambiguity is not a property of the objects per se but a function of the experiences and interpretative categories that observers apply in order to translate objects into words. This work of translation is essential to any strand of object-based research—be it concerned with heavily worn potsherds fresh out of the ground or a carefully curated museum piece. It is the means by which artefacts can be described, named, and explained. Translation therefore not only gives meaning to objects in a particular locale but also transposes them into words that can be repeated and disseminated in ways that the original physical entities cannot. Furthermore, the process permits this verbal channelling to be achieved in a bilateral mode: turning the classified thing into an object of knowledge and the classifying person into an expert responsible for establishing the taxonomic system and regulating its application to other objects deemed of the same type.2 This chapter explores the role drawings play in this work of translation by highlighting their logistical and epistemic capacities. In the day-to-day ac­tiv­ ities of archaeologists, drawings and other reproductions are treated as simple stand-ins for absent objects. The vases are, on the one hand, too fragile and valuable for easy transport and, on the other, normally not numerous enough in individual collections to reveal classifiable relationships of similarity and difference. Two-dimensional representations of vases are also critical in settling the objects’ status as either utilitarian objects or unique works of art. Drawings hold a special place among these representations. To this day, sketching and drawing are—along with photography—the first steps in recording pottery in excavations and study rooms. As we will see, drawn illustrations allow for the selective foregrounding or eliding of visual features according to the taxonomical intentions of the observer. Drawing has long been the medium of choice in assimilating a particular example to the priorities of the given context of

1   The claim has not been widely accepted; see Vickers 1985: 126–7, cf. Boardman 1978: 11–12, and discussion below, note 59. 2  Jeffrey Moser 2021 recently described this twin process of cultural capitalization and intellectual commodification in relation to Chinese bronzes.

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enquiry. The medium’s advantage lies in its exceptional versatility, encompassing an almost unlimited spectrum of stylistic choices, tools, and possible outcomes.3 Its marks range from the tentative strokes of form-searching sketches in graphite or charcoal to the precise geometrical outlines of technical drawings executed with the help of rulers, callipers, and compasses. The defining criterion of drawing rests less on the choice of tool than on the draughtsperson’s commitment to working with lines instead of surface coverage.4 Its products can present a preparatory stage to work in other media (notably paintings and engravings) or creations in their own right. As  K.  Morton discusses in her chapter, in renderings for academic study, the demands of graphic consistency call for an expanding array of contraptions—such as tracing paper, profile gauges, and optical devices—to control the motor operations involved in transposing the three-dimensional shapes of the objects onto flat surfaces. Whatever the desired expressive effect, one persistent tension in the evolution of drawing styles stems from the contradicting demands of generalization and par­ticu­lar­ iza­tion. To abandon the balance between the two risks obliterating the very comprehensibility of the depicted object—either by locating its origins in a unique and unknowable moment of creation or by expanding the boundaries of its typological class beyond the limits of historical specificity. The drawings explored in this chapter relate to three key turning points in the study of vases and in archaeological thinking more broadly: they reveal how these objects were made sense of through the emergent taxonomies of early modern antiquarianism; how Neoclassical critics reinterpreted the materiality of the painted decoration as form and reconceptualized the act of drawing itself; and finally how drawing allowed painted pottery to be accommodated within the all-embracing classifications of scientific archaeology that crystalized in the twentieth century. In the final section, I examine how drawing aided the formation of processes of knowing, inviting the consideration of touch, embodied viewing, and craft in general into object-based research. In covering a wide array of p ­ eriods and practices, the discussion attempts a synthetic overview of the styles and contexts of archaeological representation explored in individual chapters of this volume. Throughout, the aim is to shift the conversation from evaluating drawings of vases as more or less accurate visual records to the transformations which the practice of visualization itself accomplishes—how it shapes the viewers’ perceptions and has given rise to new frameworks of interpretation.

  See especially Maynard 2005 and Petherbridge 2009 on the variety and history of drawing.   John Berger 2005: 3 compares the marks of drawing to stepping stones needed to cross a river, the brushstrokes of painting to ‘a stone to be fitted into a planned edifice’. The focus on linearity rather than tools justifies the wide range of graphic products discussed in this chapter, including watercolours, prints, and pencil sketches, not to mention the ‘painted’ vases themselves. 3 4

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DR AW I NG A S EPIST EM IC PR ACT ICE A N D T H E TA XONOM I E S OF E A R LY MODER N A N T IQUA R I A N ISM

Why Greek vases became objects worth possessing and investigating is not as obvious as their prominence in modern museums might lead us to expect. Before their discovery as antiquities, even the most fragmentary bronzes and marbles were more desirable, if only for the metal or lime that could be extracted from them. Painted pottery was often destroyed upon excavation, a practice that endured into the nineteenth century according to disparaging eyewitness accounts by northern travellers. When early modern antiquarians first tried to fit the objects into their classificatory schemes, they set in motion a new transactional order in which the value of the thing itself depended on the intellectual capital issuing from the collector’s ability to develop taxonomical systems and maintain their integrity in the face of new discoveries—in an era when such systems came to be viewed as a means of explaining the world.5 The earliest known drawings of vases also confound any simplistic presumptions one might hold about the overall direction of the drawing styles employed. It would certainly be misleading to think that such depictions became more accurate as the material became better known or the techniques of reproduction improved. Such expectations are easily dispelled by looking at the illustrations from the archival legacy of the French antiquarian Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc (1580–1637), which include some of the most closely observed drawings of ancient vases ever made. The handful of examples that have been published so far comprise three views of a Campanian red-figure amphora (Figure 2.1a–c). Although the precise circumstances of the drawings remain unknown, Peiresc’s correspondence with the Roman collector Cassiano Dal Pozzo (1588–1657) and the librarian of Cardinal Barberini, Claude Menestrier, reveals his growing interest in vases from the early 1620s.6 The immediate motivation for requesting information on such objects was probably Peiresc’s research on ancient volume metrology, but the images themselves and the lengths he went to to employ skilled artists indicate that his curiosity also extended to other aspects of the vessels’ appearance. The painting on the amphora is reproduced with such attention to detail that J.  Chamay was able identify a similar item attributed to the Painter of New York GR 1000.7 What is remarkable   Further discussed in J. Moser 2021.   For full discussion of the drawings, see Chamay and Aufrère 1996. Before this archival discovery, it was widely believed that ancient vases were all but unknown in French collections before the late seventeenth century. The vases shown in the watercolours have not been identified. 7   Chamay and Aufrère 1996: 39. The comparandum was attributed and published by Trendall 1973: 237, no. 340. 5 6

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F igure 2.1.  a–c Ink and watercolour drawings of a Campanian red-figure amphora of the fourth century bc showing a rider leading his horse (front) and two mantle figures (back). From the archive of Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc. Pen and ink, white, yellow, and black wash. Work of an unknown artist of the 1620s or 1630s, possibly Matthieu Frédeau. 39.5 × 17.4 cm, 39.5 × 17.2 cm, and 40.4 × 16.9 cm. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, F 38955–7.

in comparison to many later depictions is that the physical realism extends to the shape of the vase as well as to its dec­or­ation. The material presence of the vessel is visually reinforced through the curved outline of the foot and the breaks at the base and lip. The shape even takes precedence around the shoulder, where the subtle shadows of the handles and the vessel’s curvature obscure the painted ornament. Furthermore, the artist included a side view that would be superfluous to the specialists in mythology and iconography that would soon dominate the study of vases. Such drawings have to be examined against a broader background of antiquarian visualizations and the interpretative work they enabled. In the famous collection of illustrations amassed by Dal Pozzo, the naturalistic style we have seen in the Peiresc drawings is paired with a more conventionalized mode of representing artefacts as types. Only a tiny fraction of the Dal Pozzo collection is devoted to painted ceramics, much of it of fourth-century bc South Italian production. As C. Vermeule notes, the range of styles resembles that of the eighteenth-century collections assembled around Naples before the discovery of the Etruscan cemeteries to the north of Rome, which yielded Archaic black- and

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red-figure vases from mainland Greece in addition to the Classical material.8 The library of the Department of Greece and Rome at the British Museum holds three illustrations. Among them is a drawing of an Apulian bell krater in ink and wash dated to c.1640, rendered with sufficient attention to detail to permit the (lost) ori­gin­al to be attributed to the Eton-Nika Painter.9 Twelve additional illustrations deriving from Dal Pozzo’s Museum Chartaceum (paper museum) can be found in a bound volume in the Royal Collection at Windsor, known as Disegni di varie antichità, Nettuno.10 Like the Peiresc drawings, several examples show the vessels in more than one view, at least one of which tries to reproduce the overall shape and colour of the object as well as its painted decoration (Figure 2.2). Alongside this corpus of naturalistic depictions, Dal Pozzo’s collection included a much greater quantity of monochrome drawings reproducing objects in a more schematic style. A significant proportion of such illustrations survived in the Antichità Diverse album at the Royal Library in Windsor. The sheets combine typologically related artefacts rendered in bold outlines in order, no doubt, to pick out the distinctive characteristics of their functional shapes. To evoke the three-dimensional qualities of the original objects, the draughtsperson relied on rough cross-hatching in addition to the shading familiar from the drawings of painted vases. The items are arranged in linear and symmetrical groupings that direct the eye to particular features and emphasize formal affinities (Figure 2.3). In many examples the artefacts were accompanied by a number instead of a caption, establishing the soon-to-be conventional way in antiquarian visualizations of fully separating verbal and visual information and of subsuming the objects’ identities in typological structures.11 E.  Vaiani, the editor of the Antichità Diverse volume published in 2016, recognized a group of drawings that copied items from the Codex Ursinianus in the Vatican library, a modest predecessor of Dal Pozzo’s paper museum of the 1560s named after its patron Fulvio Orsini.12 Despite the care taken in their completion, the drawings in the Dal Pozzo collection turn out to offer selective impressions of the originals, with such notable details as regularly omitted inscriptions. The apparent oversights are distinctive and important, not mere mistakes. They demonstrate the emergence, as S. Moser argues, of a new kind of scientific realism which adapted its subjects in ways   Vermeule 1958: 203. On the discovery of the northern Etruscan cemeteries, see note 37.   Illustrated by Vermeule 1958: 204, fig. 16, and M. Gaifman and A. Smith in this volume. 10   Vermeule 1958: 205–8. 11   As Stephanie Moser 2014: 69 notes, the substitution on the drawings of figure numbers for descriptive text departs from the practice of Pirro Ligorio, whose paper museum Dal Pozzo had consulted as a visual resource for his own collection. 12   Vaiani 2016. The Codex Ursinianus in turn included reproductions of drawings by the antiquarian Pirro Ligorio. 8 9

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Figure 2.2.  Drawing of an Attic red-figure lekythos (above) and an Attic black-figure lekythos (below). Brown ink and red, black, and grey washes on white primed background. The red-figure lekythos has been compared to the work of the Beldam Painter by John D. Beazley and is preserved in Bologna, Museo Civico Archeologico, Inv. PU304, BAPD 209265. The black-figure lekythos is from the Cock Group, similar to BAPD 330462. From Dal Pozzo Paper Museum. Windsor, Royal Library Inv. 11,349, 11,350. Royal Collection Trust/ © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021.

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F igure 2.3.  Series of vessel types. The drawings of eight bottles in the upper two rows were copied after an engraving in Jean-Jacques Chifflet’s 1621 treatise on ‘lacrymatories’, vessels for containing mourners’ tears (Chifflet 1621: 11). The four vessels in the bottom row derive from a different source or were drawn from life, as discussed in Vaiani 2016: 322, no. 130. Dal Pozzo Paper Museum, Antichità Diverse. Windsor, Royal Library Inv. 10269r. Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021.

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meaningful to the antiquarian eye and its evolving systems of typological in­ter­ pret­ation.13 The goal was not a comprehensive record of external appearances, as in the watercolours of vases, but selective abstraction that assimilated the depicted artefacts to the generic types of antiquarian classification. In effect, pictures came to constitute new ways of seeing and of making sense of antiquities in terms of formal categories instead of the traditional themes of religious custom or public life gleaned from the literary tradition. The graphic aids supported antiquarian enquiries not only by allowing researchers to assemble and synthesize data; they made interpretation possible in the strong sense by bringing external objects into the cognitive schemes of comparison and concept building. Without such aids the emergence of the specialized modes of object research still known to us simply would not have been possible. In its synthesizing tendency, the typological style emerging in the Dal Pozzo paper museum was related to the graphic norms developed by Enlightenment naturalists. Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison, in their influential history of scientific imaging, describe this ‘truth-to-nature’ representation as a shared code of ‘epistemic virtues’ revealing the world through a new lens.14 Bruno Latour had previously drawn attention to the structuring effect which the accelerated circulation of graphic and printed documents (or ‘immutable mobiles’) had on early modern research ontologies.15 The goal of the graphic mode described by Daston and Galison was no longer to record the diversity of naturalia and artificalia accumulated in Renaissance cabinets of curiosities but to define the principles of scientific taxonomy by stripping its specimens of accidental deformations and accretions and producing drawings that conveyed universal types. Yet the further one pushed the conventions of the genre, the less did its products coincide with the sense impression of the specific example. The dense encoding inherent in truth-to-nature representation created a tension between what is visible and what is known of the object, requiring the image maker to prioritize certain diagnostic features over other attributes in order to craft images that condensed infinite totality into useful essence. However obvious that conflict may seem to us, it became, according to Daston and Galison, a matter of distinct concern only in the nineteenth century, when scientists began to voice their unease about the powers of unconscious expectation and idealization, leading to the gradual shift towards recording techniques that aimed at unbiased objectivity, often through mechanical procedures. The coexistence of such contrasting styles among the study aids of antiquarian scholars offers a reminder of the multitude of factors involved in transforming the standards of artefact representation. Whereas Daston and Galison tend to   S. Moser 2012: 304–16; 2014.   Daston and Galison 2007: 70.

13 14

  Latour 1986.

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narrate their history of scientific imaging in terms of a dominant ‘period eye’ rooted in the epistemic presumptions of the observing subject, this volume’s focus on a specific class of artefacts aims to emphasize rather the importance of the objects themselves, their material complexity, and the distinctive traditions of visualization and knowledge they have inspired. The complexity involved in the case of painted ceramics rests on their simultaneous status as artworks and utilitarian instruments, complicating the emerging distinction between art and science. As works of art, the painted vases resisted for much longer than other types of ancient objects the tendency towards typological generalization which we observed in the Dal Pozzo drawings. When a similar degree of distillation eventually did take hold in the eighteenth century, it seemed more related to external expectations about antiquity than the inconsistencies of mimetic depiction.

T R ACE S R ECONCEI V ED A S FOR MS A N D T H E N EOCL A S SIC A L R ECONCEP T UA L I Z AT ION OF DR AW I NG

The watercolours collected by Peiresc and Dal Pozzo bring home how little information on ancient vases was available in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The great debates that would occupy later eras—revolving, for example, around the Etruscan or Greek origins of painted pottery—were unknown even in the most basic terms. The clarity of the drawings at the time reflects an initial moment of curiosity, when the visual and haptic properties of these unfamiliar objects still attracted equal attention. But the divergence of scholarly interests soon disrupted this balance and generated a host of new illustrative conventions. Just as important as the individual graphic innovations is the format in which they appeared—the antiquarian compendium that combined printed text and engravings into fixed sequences.16 Whereas the loose leaves in earlier paper mu­seums could be freely reordered and recontextualized, the bound book imposed certain syntactic constraints on how the information was digested, and it presupposed some degree of acquiescence to this internal structure.17 While scholarly sensitivity is trained to analyse the content of printed statements, the overarching principles according to which visual information is relayed often remain implicit.   On the impact of exactly repeatable words and images in exactly repeatable order, see Ivins 1953: 2–3, and the discussion in J. Moser 2021. 17   Consider, in parallel, the storage furniture constructed for early modern cabinets of curiosities. As Glenn Adamson 2014 shows, such furniture increasingly featured internal subdivisions amenable to repeated experimental classification of their contents. Meyer 2020 explores related developments in furniture designed for the display of vases. 16

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A dominant trend reflected in the eighteenth-century illustrations is the gradual bifurcation of interests in either the shapes or the decoration of the vases. As Stefan Schmidt shows, the cognoscenti of the first half of the century—such as Bernard de Montfaucon (1655–1741) and Comte de Caylus (1692–1765)— depict the vessels as complete artefacts, back and front, to highlight their utilitarian purpose.18 They tended to bring together multiple items on numbered plates associated with separate descriptions. The method of rendering recalls the typeoriented style pioneered in Dal Pozzo’s paper museum in its emphasis on object series, bichrome linearity, and graphic consistency. Less important was the dec­ or­ation, which could be obscured in the pictures by heavy shading applied to accentuate the curvature of the vessel forms (see Smith, Figures 3.1 and 3.2). The process of reproduction, often from previous engravings or archival documents rather than the originals, could involve much loss of detail. A telling ex­ample comes from the republication of the Campanian amphora in the Peiresc watercolour (Figure 2.1a–c) in a plate in Montfaucon’s L’antiquité expliquée (see Smith, Figure 3.2), in a section illustrating painted pottery as everyday items of the ancients. The break at the foot and lip, which had been so carefully de­lin­ eated by Peiresc’s illustrator, was restored in order to highlight the utility of the complete vessel.19 By the mid-eighteenth century the opposing interests in either decoration or shape encouraged experimentation with new methods of visualization. The convention of reproducing the vase paintings ‘unrolled’ in separate picture fields (already known to Dal Pozzo, as seen in Figure 2.2) became common. Giovanni Battista Passeri’s Picturae Etruscorum in vasculis—one of the first books devoted to vase painting—employed it alongside frontal or three-quarter views of the entire vessel (Figure 2.4).20 In Baron d’Hancarville’s famous publication of William Hamilton’s vases, the separate views of vessels and unrolled vase images are occasionally combined with profile drawings indicating the objects’ measurements and, at times, wall thickness.21 As  N.  Dietrich and M. Gaifman demonstrate in their chapters, the effects of this graphic disarticulation of the vessels into separate images had a mixed impact. While the different illustrative methods conveyed a great deal of information overall, in practice the incentive to comprehend the different aspects of the vessels’ design in combination was diminished. As the pictorial and morphological features were rele­ gated to separate pages or sections, the reader could consult the book’s contents   Schmidt 1999: 37–8, commenting on Caylus 1752: pls. 31–44, 55, no. 2, 1756: pls. 19–26, 31–7, and Montfaucon 1722: pls. 71–2. On Montfaucon’s illustrations, see also S. Moser 2014: 82–7. 19   Also discussed by Jaubert and Laurens 2005: 66–7. 20   Passeri 1767–75, with discussion of the images in Schmidt 1999: 38 and A. Smith’s chapter in this volume, and identification of the vases in Masci 2008: 226–517. 21  See AEGR, with discussion in Jaubert and Laurens 2005: 67–8. 18

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F igure 2.4.  Engraving of an Attic red-figure calyx krater, now Bologna, Museo Civico PU 286, BAPD 215331. After Passeri 1767, pl. 7.

without ever having to contemplate how painted pictures and ceramic bodies complemented each other when the vessels were put to use. Seen in this light, the visual conventions emer­ging in these publications can be described as a harbinger of the disciplinary specialization and empiricism associated with nineteenth-century scholarship. But to understand what role the graphic disaggregation of vases played in these later contexts, factors other than institutional change in nineteenth-century academia need to be taken into consideration. No less important were changes in how drawn lines were thought to relate to the visible world they were meant to depict. As I hope to show in the following

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discussion, Greek vases were indeed pivotal in shifting conceptualizations of the drawn line from the domain of gestures and material traces to that of formal appearances. The general outlines of this development are well known to art historians. In the academic tradition going back to the sixteenth century, skilled drawing was seen as the outcome of rational practice, achieved through imitation of ideal models, above all Greco-Roman statues.22 By the early nineteenth century, however, lines in art were evaluated as signs of subjective phenomena—expressions of genuine intuition and genius nurtured by freedom. A key moment in this process was the reinterpretation of vase paintings as stand-alone ‘master’ drawings in the publication of Hamilton’s second collection of antiquities overseen by the German painter Johann Tischbein (1751–1829).23 An immediate impulse for its conception was the comparison in Johann Joachim Winckelmann’s Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums (1764) of the vase paintings with Raphael’s drawings.24 Winckelmann admired especially the uninterrupted contour lines, drawn quickly, with great assurance and revealing superior dexterity. His observations hark back to an conventional motif of art historiography known from Pliny’s comment that the perfection of Greek painting was most tangible in the confidence displayed in the contour lines of the Classical artist Parrhasius.25 The preoccupation with line drawing was also the motivation for Tischbein’s use of copper engravings rather than etchings to reproduce the vases. This laborious technique required the engraver to reperform the work of the ancient vase painter, as the figured decoration had to be rendered freehand on the copperplate with a burin. The process left no room for corrections: a slip of the hand could compel the engraver to start the procedure anew. As Schmidt suggests, the payoff expected from this high-risk technique was the viewer’s appreciation of the skill the vase painter mobilized in applying the quick-drying ceramic slip—a point stressed in Hamilton’s introduction to the volumes.26

23   See especially Aymonino 2015.   Hamilton and Tischbein 1791–5.   Winckelmann 2006: pt. 1, ch. 3, 177–8. For further discussion of this passage, see the chapters by M. Gaifman and A. Smith in this volume. 25  Pliny, NH 35.67, cf. Quintilian 12.10.14. The topos also appears in the apocryphal drawing competition between Apelles and Protogenes in Pliny (NH 35.81–3), later picked up in Vasari’s re-evaluation of Renaissance disegno as the epitome of genius. 26   Schmidt 2005: 34–5, and Hamilton and Tischbein 1791: 34–6, 40: ‘The freedom and elegance of the drawings on these Vases, is [sic] truly admirable, considering the difficulties, which the Artists employed in them, must have had to combat with, and considering the nature of the material on which they worked, for these paintings must have been executed in the same manner as those on the China and Earthen ware of our modern manufactures, which requires the utmost facility and rapidity in their execution, if the Artist does not trace his outline at one stroke, he fails, as the humidity of his pencil is imbibed, and the Earthy particles only remain, and this kind of drawing does not allow of corrections.’ 22 24

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The contrast with the earlier reproductions discussed could hardly be more pointed (Figure 2.5a–b). In transferring the vase painting onto the flat page, all reference to the ceramic carrier was erased; the decoration appears as an autonomous ‘picture’ within an elegant double-line frame. The figures’ dress was re­arranged, sometimes its transparency reduced. Eyes are depicted in a uniform profile schema, and hairstyles in single strands instead of the plain black silhouettes bordered by a reserved band. Hands and feet feature nails and skin folds, and the figures’ right contour lines have been enhanced to suggest incident light from the top left and create an impression of spatial depth through methods unknown in Greek vase painting. Notwithstanding these modifications, Hamilton’s introduction claims that ‘there never has been a Work of the kind executed with such a scrupulous attention, the learned Antiquarian may make his Dissertations from these drawings as well as if he had the Vase itself before him’.27

F igure 2.5a.  Copper engraving of an Attic red-figure hydria. After Hamilton and Tischbein 1791, pl. 7.   Hamilton and Tischbein 1791: iii and 10. For a similar comparison between red-figure painting and Tischbein’s engravings, see Schmidt 2005: 32–34. 27

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Figure 2.5b.  Attic red-figure hydria showing the Daughters of Pelias. Attributed to Villa Giulia Painter. H 29.7 cm. 475–425 bc. BAPD 207220. Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum Inv. GR.12.1917. © Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

By erasing the interdependence between the vessel and its decoration, Tischbein’s engravings suggested that the vase paintings were really pictures that needed to be rescued from their material support. This perspective was partly a result of the disregard for the ‘decorative’ arts originating with the Renaissance practitioners who had laboured to promote the importance of artistic innovation over the medium to which it is applied, however precious it might be.28 The priority of the inventive intellect over materials and the ‘mechanics’ of execution has been a cornerstone of Western art ever since, but it took a new turn in the wake of the Neoclassical aesthetics of John Flaxman (1755–1826). The British artist became interested in Greek vases during a 1791 visit to Tischbein’s workshop in Naples, shortly before the first volume of Hamilton’s vase catalogue was completed. The 28  See for instance Sennett’s discussion (2008: 67–74) of Benvenuto Cellini. In a less determined understanding (set out in Maynard 2005: 128) ‘decorum’ denotes what is appropriate for the object at hand, i.e. applying decoration (be it figurative or not) to guide the perception of the viewer and bring out the shape of the object rather than the virtual forms of depicted space.

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F igure 2.6.  Ulysses at the Table of Circe. John Flaxman, engraved by James Parker, 1805. 19.5 × 26.1 cm. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1977.595.53(16).

impression the project made on him is clear from the outline style that Flaxman employed in his illustrated Iliad of Homer (1793) and Compositions from the Tragedies of Aeschylus (1795). The most distinctive feature of this style is the plain shapes on blank paper drawn without shading and min­imal indication of bodily volume through contour lines (Figure  2.6).29 Deanna Petherbridge describes Flaxman’s reductive outlines as the soon-to-be authoritative style of the period and maps its far-flung afterlife from the mystic symbolism of Otto Runge all the way to Paul Klee and other modernists.30 Flaxman’s linear idiom blurred the visual differences between drawing and engraving, as she stresses, and allowed for the narrative techniques and figure types inspired by Greek vase painting to be relayed in a consistent style. Flaxman also adopted Tischbein’s trait of juxtaposing fine lines with heavier ones in a manner recalling the effects of spatial compression in relief carving.

 Flaxman 1793, 1795. On Tischbein’s influence, see Rosenblum 1976: 62–3; Jenkins and Sloan 1996: 45–58; Busch 2001: 24–8; Schmidt 2004: 23. 30   Petherbridge 2009: 94–5, 200–1, and see A. Smith’s chapter in this volume for further discussion. 29

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As the chapters by A. Smith and A. Petsalis-Diomidis in this volume show, Flaxman’s outline style marked a turning point in early nineteenth-century taste and design. But commentators were not universally impressed when his prints first appeared. Wolfgang von Goethe, for instance, acknowledged Flaxman’s ‘feeling for simplicity and naturalness’, but regretted the apparent lack of finish of his illustrations, claiming that he could not find a single creation among them which ‘one would want to see completely developed into a picture’.31 Elsewhere he worried that the ‘charming hieroglyphs’ would seduce art lovers and artists into a deceptive sense of familiarity with art’s essence. His objection was against the outline style’s apparent ability to ‘speak directly to the mind’ without ‘satisfying the external senses’ by rendering textured surfaces, colour, and volume.32 Conversely the next generation of Romantic critics seized on this same hieroglyphic character as a crucial advantage over illusionistic painting. August Schlegel, for example, described Flaxman’s linear style as working in analogous ways to words in poetry, inviting the viewer to complete imaginatively what is only hinted at by the line on paper.33 Schmidt recognizes this activation of the viewer’s imagination through minimal graphic signs as vase painting’s central contribution to modern graphic aesthetics.34 The lines on paper were understood as a juncture between the sensible and intelligible worlds and, by extension, between the experience of art by the viewer and the experience of beauty which had inspired the artist. This definition of drawing exceeded the longstanding notion of disegno as the foundational skill of the sister arts, the common denominator of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Drawing was no longer considered a skill in the strict sense, residing in the muscle memory accumulated through repeated practice. Its perceived essence gravitated from the work of hands to that of minds: that is, to the cognitive operations thought to determine forms before they are executed through physical gestures. To comprehend a drawing now meant to access the innermost sensitivity of its maker. Accordingly, the drawings of vase decorations, unrolled and freed from the curved confines of their vessels, concretized the status of the painted pots as works of artistic genius and made leafing through a volume of vase drawings an experience that activated the eighteenth-century viewer’s intimate and imagined understanding of the Greek maker.

32   Goethe 1980: 222.   Goethe 1799: 118–19.  A.  W.  Schlegel 1799: 205. His brother K.  W.  F.  Schlegel 1823: 10 praised Flaxman’s work in similar terms. 34   Schmidt 2004: 24; 2005: 37–9, with previous discussion in Busch 2001: 21–35. 31

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I N PU R SU I T OF COM PR EH ENSI V E CL A S SI F IC AT ION I N T H E T W EN T I ET H CEN T U R Y

This new understanding of how lines on paper relate to lines on clay, on the one hand, and to the intentions of the vase painter, on the other, presented both obstacles and possibilities for archaeology’s coming of age as an academic ­dis­cip­line. The nineteenth century witnessed a rapid expansion of fieldwork, from the amateur explorations in the necropoleis of Southern Italy and Etruria to the ‘big digs’ in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean. Greek vases were prominent among the unprecedented volume of finds that reached European museums through the antiquities market and came to act as a catalyst for new methods of publication. Foremost among these was the corpus: a catalogue devised to assemble each and every example of a type of artefact.35 The format infused the discipline with its self-contradictory ambition for complete coverage— a goal that is destined to remain out of reach as long as archaeologists continue to excavate. The very activity that gave birth to the genre ensures that most printed corpora are outdated before they come off the press. It is also important to note that this drive for completeness went much further than the complete collection of examples in books: the data gathering invested in such publications depended on broader ideas about the relationship of arch­ aeo­logic­al objects to the past. While nineteenth-century archaeologists generally understood their finds as relics from bygone eras (things from the past in the present), their modern-day successors are more interested in their encounter with archaeological remains in the present. Accordingly, the discipline is in the twenty-first century less concerned with excavating as much as possible and recording it ‘objectively’ (whatever that might mean) than with establishing the representative value of what is preserved and the processes by which material remains are constituted as historical evidence. The paramount debates revolve around the formation of the archaeological record, the biases coming into play in its investigation, and the mediatory role of the images and texts that embody archaeological knowledge.36 If vase corpora were decisive in establishing new knowledge, we could connect our subject to those debates by asking how reproductions of vases reconfigured the people and resources around them to engage in new modes of research. To avoid the impression that nineteenth-century archaeologists were naïve positivists, it is worth recalling how much has changed since the idea of the corpus came into being. Its birth is tied to the discovery of the cemetery at Vulci in

  My thinking on corpora is much indebted to Lucas 2012: 18–73.   For relevant discussions in archaeological theory with emphasis on fieldwork, records, and visualizations, see Jones, MacSween, Jeffrey, Morris, and Heyworth 2003; Lucas 2012; Bonde and Houston 2013. 35 36

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1828 and the subsequent extension of exploration to other Etruscan sites. As  M.-A.  Bernard shows in her chapter, the German archaeologist Eduard Gerhard (1795–1867) was closely involved in documenting the vast number of vases unearthed. Improved recording was the hallmark of the reformed dis­cip­ line he endeavoured to define in opposition to the ‘aesthetic dilettantism’ of his predecessors.37 Yet in one important respect his situation was not that different from what went before: Gerhard did not excavate himself and had, as a result, a limited role in deciding what was worth recording. By and large he was still able to conceive of archaeology in terms of objects (as opposed to contexts) and treat those objects as if they derived from a collection. His method of documenting artefacts was accordingly not that different from that found in catalogues. With the onset of state-sponsored excavation in Greece and Turkey in the 1870s (namely in Olympia, Samothrace, Pergamon, and Delphi), the creation of complete corpora became ever more difficult.38 Rather than giving up on the idea, however, most archaeologists assumed some sort of ad hoc compromise that allowed them to publish corpora containing representative samples of artefacts or to defer completeness perennially by issuing the material in an expandable series of volumes or fascicles. For painted pottery the task of complete collection spelled the dilemma I pointed out in the introduction of this chapter: to what extent are these objects really unique? If a black-figure amphora showing Athena has already been documented, does a second one of the same technique and subject warrant the effort? What does it even mean to create a ‘complete’ inventory of these objects? As long as vase specialists were concerned with documenting discoveries and collections before they were dispersed on the market, the required effort was feasible. A selection of representative objects sufficed to indicate the technological, typological, and iconographic repertoire of Greek vases. But once field archaeologists began to excavate ‘whole cities and landscapes’ and retrieve ‘all manner of minor art forms down to the most insignificant potsherd’, ceramicists interested in fine wares were also required to support and justify the principles of total collection instituted in fieldwork.39 One solution was to treat each and every fragment as a unique creation by determining, for instance, that it showed not just any blackfigure Athena but one done by a certain Painter of X at a specific stage in the artist’s career. The contrasting demands of creating selective or total corpora provide the overarching parameters within which archaeological vase illustrations evolved

37  On Vulci, see Cook 1992: 281–2; Sparkes 1996: 58–9; Nørskov 2009; Halbertsma 2017. On Gerhard’s place in the discipline’s history, see Marchand 1996: 41; Schnapp 1996: 304–10, and 2004. 38   On the ‘big digs’, see Marchand 1996: 75–115. 39   Conze 1902: 167, cited in Marchand 1996: 97.

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in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Earlier works usually ordered their ma­ter­ial in thematic groups (i.e. mythological subjects and the newly invented category of ‘everyday life’) or according to the technique and chronology of its decoration (the solution advocated by Gerhard for thematic subgroups).40 The inclination towards typological generalization is most obvious in the rigorous separation between image and vessel shape—the decoration being shown ‘unrolled’ in the plate section, with information on the latter consigned to separate reference pages at the end, featuring a sample of vase types in idealized outline drawings. By the beginning of the twentieth century the idea of refining the organization of such publications was nothing new. It was also clear that the majority of engravings commissioned for earlier publications was not up to the task. The two major projects that tried to resolve this obstacle were conceived respectively in the first and second decades of the twentieth century by Edmond Pottier (1855–1934) and John D. Beazley (1885–1970).41 They resemble each other in that the fine-scale classifications they yielded would not have been possible without visual aids, but they differ significantly in the scope of the material they tried to cover and in the role such visualizations played in ordering that ma­ter­ial. Pottier’s Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum (CVA) initially aimed to classify all ancient pottery (West Asian, northern European, as well as Mediterranean) by publishing the museum collections of individual countries one by one in photo­graph­ic fascicles that adhered to the same strict principles and represented the artefacts—as N. Dietrich’s chapter details—in a highly standardized way.42 Beazley’s work tried to achieve a similarly comprehensive classification only for the black- and red-figure pottery from Attica by employing stylistic study to assign the vase decorations to individual painters known from signatures or to anonymous ‘hands’ identified solely through personal traits. His corpora contain no images, just lists of attributed vases with minimal descriptions. The work of visualization occurred behind the scenes, in the form of drawings Beazley executed to improve his connoisseurial faculties. In contrast to the photographs in Pottier’s CVA, Beazley’s drawings were not presented as visual ‘proofs’ of finished classifications but underpinned an ongoing heuristic process—an entirely new way of learning from arch­aeo­logic­al objects that

  For detailed discussion, see Jaubert and Laurens 2005: 60–8. The thematic method was more common in French ‘ceramography’ and auction catalogues, whereas classification by technique and chron­ ology was promoted by the members of the newly founded Instituto di corrispondenza archeologica in Rome and in museum catalogues published in Germany. 41   The two approaches have been compared extensively by Rouet 2001 and Kurtz 2004. 42   On Pottier’s reasons for preferring photography to drawing and engraving, see Rouet 2001: 50–1. On the initial organization and aims of CVA, see Rouet 2001: 128–31. 40

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remained mostly invisible to the readers of his scholarly output.43 This practicebased methodology invites closer consideration, for in understanding how Beazley trained his sensitivity, we might also gain a new platform for exploring the medium-specific sensitivities of vase painting. At the very least, Beazley’s drawings offer a prompt for questioning the prevalent tendency in academia to envisage insight as a purely cognitive operation occurring in isolation from its sensory environment. As with many other aspects of his method, Beazley was taciturn about his drawing technique. That he drew assiduously during his extended research trips to museums across Europe and the United States was long known from the publication of some of his more carefully finished tracings.44 But many of his drawings consist of freehand sketches in notebooks that have only recently been made accessible through the Beazley Archive website.45 Some 154 notebooks are preserved from the beginning of his career in 1907 to the late 1930s, when he switched to a system of loose-leaf paper. As D. Rodríguez Pérez has pointed out, his method of drawing changed over this period.46 Whereas earlier notebooks contain plenty of written annotations alongside rough sketches that aim to capture the overall appearance of the vases, in later ones the drawings do most of the work through a codified system of recording distinctive anatomical features of the depicted figures in isolation (see Figures 8.11 and 8.12). Other vase specialists interested in personal style had been experimenting with various drawing techniques before Beazley developed his procedure. A.  Tsingarida’s chapter tracks his use of tracing paper to British and German scholars straddling the line between museums and art practice. His predecessors often tried to reproduce the entire decoration of the painted vessels in extended ‘dissections’ of the scenes, as if drawn in split perspective. Among the best-known renderings of this type are the inked tracings by Karl Reichhold for reproduction in the outsize plates of his collaborative publication with Adolf Furtwängler (see Lorenz, Figures 7.3, 7.4, and 7.7, and Dietrich, Figure 10.3).47 In the early decades of the twentieth century, the technical limitations and cost of photography provided ample rationale for vase specialists to resort to drawing. Close-up photographs were far too rare to permit the level of stylistic scrutiny

43   I am concerned with Beazley’s drawing technique, not the origins of his connoisseurship as such. His debt to German archaeology and the study of Renaissance painting (as pioneered by Giovanni Morelli and Bernard Berenson) has been discussed by Kurtz 1985; Williams 1996; and, most recently, Arrington 2017; Driscoll 2019; and A. Tsingarida in this volume. 44   For discussion, see Kurtz 1983: 3–5; 1985: 243–50; Von Bothmer 1983: 6–8; Walter 2008: 181–7. 45   See the Beazley Notebook Project (https://www.carc.ox.ac.uk/carc/resources/Beazley-Notebooks), with discussions in Rodríguez Pérez 2016, 2018. 46   Rodríguez Pérez 2018: 746–7; previously Von Bothmer 1985: 9. 47   See FR (i–iii) and the discussions in this volume by N. Dietrich, K. Lorenz, and A. Tsingarida.

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needed to associate unsigned pots with signed ones or with anonymous painters. Indeed, in 1919 Reichhold still claimed confidently that due to the scarcity of exact reproductions, ‘any attempt to order the totality of surviving vessels according to masters is likely to err’.48 By that time Beazley had published a series of articles on the oeuvres of individual painters and set his sights on the kind of project Reichhold disavowed: a total corpus embracing as many vases as he could study, regardless of their quality. Even after the ready availability of published photographs, drawing remained indispensable for training his memory as well as building a personal archive for study and teaching. His awareness of the interplay between seeing and knowing through the coordinated activity of hand and mind comes through clearly in a lecture on archaeological pedagogy delivered in 1943: If you wish to learn to distinguish one style from another, my advice will be one word: draw: draw, freehand, make sketches of the shape, of the general com­pos­ ition, and of separate details . . . You will find that you have to take notice of many details that you would pass by if you had not decided to draw everything, and you will have continually to be making up your mind on small questions that might not present themselves to you . . . Draw: for the hand remembers as well as the eye.49

Studies in cognitive psychology support his insight. As one recent study stresses, memory performance is significantly enhanced if the concept to be remembered (in this case ‘the Painter’) is drawn out by hand (as a ‘system of renderings’ identifiable as a personal style). The benefits of drawing derive not from the increase in time spent with the information or from the combination of semantic and cognitive encoding but from the integration of mental with kinaesthetic activity.50 This functional explanation of his drawings should not prevent us from considering the intricacies of the process of making them and the effects it had on the observer’s awareness of the objects. In view of the many hours of solitary sketching and tracing which Beazley devoted to the task, one might be tempted to ask whether drawing was itself the end or the means of his research. Critics   Reichhold 1919: 13–14: ‘Auch machen sich oft in den Reihen der signierten Gefässe eines und desselben Meisters so grosse Unterschiede in Einzelheiten bemerkbar, dass derjenige, der für die Zusammengehörigkeit dieser Gefässe, im Falle sie nicht signiert wären, eintreten würde, die schärfste Zurückweisung erfahren dürfte. Jedem Versuch, die Gesamtmasse der Gefässe nach einzelnen Meistern zu ordnen, können somit die grössten Irrtümer unterlaufen. Übrigens liegen zur vollen Orientierung noch viel zu wenig exakte Reproduktionen vor.’ 49   Beazley 1989: 101–2. Compare this quote with John Berger’s description (2005: 3) of drawing as discovery: ‘It is the actual act of drawing that forces the artist to look at the object in front of him, to dissect it in his mind’s eye and put it together again . . . A line, an area of tone, is not really important because it records what you have seen, but because of what it will lead you on to see. Following up its logic in order to check its accuracy, you find confirmation or denial in the object itself or in your memory of it. Each confirmation or denial brings you closer to the object, until finally you are, as it were, inside it: the contours you have drawn no longer marking the edge of what you have seen but the edge of what you have become.’ 50   Wammes, Mead, and Fernandes 2016. 48

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of connoisseurship will likely find in his notebooks further evidence of the field’s idiosyncratic inclinations. But in rejecting its pursuits too quickly we miss an interesting opportunity to explore the mutualism between what we know and how we know it. As I will argue in the final pages of this chapter, the very idea of trying to distinguish between the process and the product of research is in­appro­pri­ate—in the case of Beazley and indeed in any other branch of object-based research.

PROCE S SE S OF K NOW I NG: DR AW I NG, TOUCH, A N D CR A F T

Contemporary accounts describe the procedure of drawing vases as an endlessly difficult undertaking. Even with the help of tracing paper, the resulting copies always fell short of the originals. The process of transferring the vase paintings from three-dimensional objects to two-dimensional paper involved constant ‘corrections’ since the tracings only ever presented approximations, not true ‘facsimiles’. Lindsley Hall, the illustrator who produced the tracings for Gisela Richter’s catalogue of the Athenian red-figured vases in the Metropolitan Museum, was surprisingly candid about the modifications his method entailed. In his introductory note, Hall compared his work to Gerardus Mercator’s cylindrical projection of the earth’s surface.51 As in Mercator’s map, Hall’s drawings preserved the local linear scale and angles around specific points but distorted the size of objects as the latitude increased from the equator of the spheroid globe to its poles. Whereas Mercator was able to increase the area of both the land and the sea as he neared the poles, Hall had to make the necessary enlargements wherever possible in the black background of the vase decoration rather than in the reserved figure painting. This alteration meant that, in order to prevent obfuscation of the narrative relationship between the depicted figures and a potentially grotesque distortion of the figures, the spaces between them had to be ‘corrected’—that is, increased between the heads and feet and decreased between the bodies. In some cases the arms and legs had to be lengthened ‘a little’ or the bands of ornament framing the scenes were extended by adding units or elongating the existing ones. If the need for correction was obvious in Hall’s drawings of complete figure scenes, even the partial tracings by Beazley called for adjustments. Dietrich von Bothmer, who had witnessed Beazley’s drawing technique and produced tracings himself, described how the paper had to be moved on the curved surface to verify the course of the painted lines, to distinguish them from cracks or to compensate for distortions. However subtle, the curvature of the vessel meant that   Hall 1936: vii.

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the resulting image ended up being infinitesimally different from the original. Beazley was sensitive to this gap, offering detailed criticism of tracings done by himself and others—we even find him speculating how vase painters would have reacted to his reproductions.52 The infelicities were, however, hardly the most troubling aspect of his drawings: the procedure also required him to come clean about what he thought the mediated trace could tell about the original object and its conditions of creation. As already mentioned, Beazley’s notebooks show that he became progressively more assured in translating the vase paintings into his evolving system of conventions based on heavier and lighter pencil strokes.53 The idea that Beazley might himself have become a master craftsman is in­tri­ guing. As R. Neer points out, the very possibility of one person gaining fluency in another’s style of drawing through imitation undermined the premise that the ‘systems of rendering’ which connoisseurs seek to recognize were truly individual and identifiable with artistic personalities.54 Beazley was of course adamant in downplaying the flair of his draughtsmanship and the ability of any tracing to capture the essence of the original, not least because his own practice reminded him constantly that the differences between a master’s genuine work and that of a ‘student’, ‘follower’, or ‘imitator’ were less clear-cut than he might have wished. The drawings of connoisseurship had to be accurate enough to support its practice but not too close to the original to undermine its premise in artistic originality. In highlighting the pressures which Beazley’s drawings had to withstand, my goal is not to question the legitimacy of his method. What we can ask, however, is what its practice can bring to other fields of object study, and what we can still learn from it in the digital age, as computer applications have begun to sort potsherds faster and more accurately than humans.55 In future years, Beazley’s process may attract more interest than the body of attributions he produced because the way he came to know about vases offers an intriguing instance not just of the sensory conditions of all knowledge but particularly of the dialogue that arch­ aeo­logic­al research can initiate between the empirical rigour of science and the speculative powers of making.56 All the same, Beazley’s reluctance to explain this method has put later students in a difficult position. If he was so deeply interested 52   Beazley 1922: 97: ‘Let us return to our citharode. I am sensible that I have not got his lower lip quite right: the error is tiny, but the Greek artist, if he could see my drawing, would complain that I had made the lad look licentious. I am aware that the right hand of the instructor is not quite accurate in my copy: it is a trifle less incompetent in the original; but the Greek artist would admit that this was not his most successful hand. In spite of such faults, the drawings, in conjunction with the photographs, give a good idea of the singular beauty of the original.’ For his critique of other illustrators’ drawings, see Kurtz 1983: 4, notes 21, 22; and Von Bothmer 1983: 8. 53 54   Rodríguez Pérez 2018: 746–7.   Neer 1997: 20–1. 55   See, recently, Pawlowicz and Downum 2021 for an experiment in computer-enabled pottery sorting. 56   Literature on anthropology of craft and knowledge has grown exponentially in the last twenty years; key contributions include Edgeworth 2006; Marchand 2010; Ingold 2011, 2013; Knappett 2010.

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in ancient craft, why did he not allow his practical experiences to transpire more clearly in his writings? As silent drawing took the place of theoretical reflection, Beazley’s commitment to learning by doing also magnified the mystique of connoisseurship. Some observers suspect that wishful intents to relive antiquity were at play, probably not without reason. After all, the transfer of vase paintings with tracing paper involves tactile contact with the textures of ancient making and reperformance of its gestural hexis.57 By touching what ancient makers have made, he also made contact with their embodied experiences. Even on the level of outward postures, we can recognize similarities between Beazley’s position vis-à-vis the object (Figure 2.7)

F igure 2.7.  Beazley working in autumn 1956 at the Museo Archeologico, Ferrara. Photograph by Nereo Alfieri. From the Beazley Archive, courtesy of the Classical Art Research Centre, University of Oxford. 57   According to Neer (2009), Beazley’s drawing practice participated in a shared connoisseurial trad­ ition of perpetuating chains of imprints from antiquity that stretched from Winckelmann through Goethe to Morelli. Just as the Athenian philosopher Socrates allegedly assembled his students in the gymnasium to debate the imprints of young wrestlers in the sand as beautiful form, so did Winckelmann conceive of the ideal contours of bodies in antique gems and statues as imprints of the haptic vision that was—in the blessed conditions of Classical Athens—free to touch beautiful bodies. Beazley’s personal life may provide justification for considering his drawings as a latter-day extension of this chain, but to do so also risks reducing his life’s work to a diagnosis of repressed sexuality.

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F igure 2.8a.  Red-figure cup fragment showing a vase painter applying slip to a cup with a brush. He holds the cup by its stem to see the area being decorated from an orthogonal viewpoint. Attributed to the Antiphon Painter, c.480 bc. W 14.2 cm. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, 01.8073.2.8. Photograph © 2022 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

and that assumed by a vase painter (Figure  2.8a–b). Both look at the vessel’s curved surface in front of them from an orthogonal viewpoint, which was also the prevalent perspective of the vase paintings themselves. In or­thog­on­al projection every pictorial unit in the scene is shown as if it were at eye level. The ground plane, for instance, is normally indicated by a single line at the bottom of the figured scene, as if it were parallel to the viewer’s line of sight.58 In this way, the spatial system invites the eyes to scan the surface progressively from vertical viewpoints to reveal the full extent of the figured composition. It presupposes a viewer who can hold the object and examine it from all sides, a condition which applies to vase painters and their patrons but rarely to modern scholars and museum visitors. Orthogonal projection is key to understanding how these objects were   Willats and Durand 2005 offer a comparative analysis of spatial rendering in different pictorial tra­ di­tions, including orthogonal projection in Greek vase painting. 58

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F igure 2.8b.  Detail of cup shown in Figure 2.8a. The painter applies slip to the curved underside of the vessel using the single-hair brush in his right hand and the small container pinched between the fingers of his left. Photograph reprinted by permission from Springer, Paula Artal-Isbrand et al., MRS Online Proceedings Library 1319 (2011) © 2022.

meant to interact with human bodies.59 The engaged viewer looks at the object from the same perspective as the artist did while applying the slip with a brush, requiring the vessels in some instances to be raised up or emptied and turned over in order to reveal obscured sections. In unlocking the figural compositions on the three-dimensional vessel through handling, the autonomy of the active viewer and the style of representation reinforce each other, as the eyes sanction the hands’ entitlement to touch.

59   By the same token, it seems unlikely that Greek vase painters were extensively experienced in drawing on flat surfaces or with the use of cartoons (as has been surmised by Vickers 1985: 126–7) or that they felt the need to adopt spatial conventions they might have seen in monumental painting (all too often vase painting is judged against the contemporary advances in perspective drawing alluded to in textual sources, a tendency noticeable, for example, in Pollitt 1974: 236–7).

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If such subjective connections between his and the vase painter’s craft ever occurred to Beazley, he never voiced them at any length. There are many ex­plan­ations for his neglect. In the empiricist frameworks dominating archaeology, such reflections would likely have seemed frivolous. The study of technology was (and still is) considered a separate subfield of classical art history whose insights are rarely brought to bear in the prime inflection points of scholarly debate, such as iconography, identity, or visual culture. In contrast to other areas of archae­ology and anthropology, it is still normal for the material culture of Greece to be perused for meaning without regard for how it was made.60 Beyond the broader directions of the discipline, Beazley had particular reasons for rejecting the ma­ter­ial aspects of vase painting as a factor in what the objects looked like. Denying the significance of the ‘recipes for making the clay and the glaze, for forming the pot, and so forth’ allowed him to speak of personal systems of forms instead of traces.61 Whereas the study of traces would bring into play the skilled collaboration between tools, hands, and substances, forms can be construed as ‘the child of a man’s brain and will’.62 As much as this move enabled the comparative study of styles, it also rendered the copying of vase paintings impossible. Copying in this framework always involves some loss of authenticity: for once painted lines are identified with mental gestations, replication involves no longer physical approximation (of movements, tools, working conditions, etc.) but psy­cho­logic­al unity. To draw like an Athenian vase painter, one had to grasp their personality intuitively—even accomplish the impossible feat of becoming one of them.63 Drawing vases was therefore less of an attempt at depicting the object than at closing a historical gap through skilled praxis. That this goal of closure was forever out of reach made its pursuit all the more attractive. Drawing was not meant to produce illustrations for others to look at as validations of a finished project. Rather, Beazley’s pointedly image-free vase lists seem to proffer an invitation to venture out there on a journey as he had done himself—visiting collections and learning to see for oneself.64

 In this respect Aegean archaeology diverges from the classical field, as seen most recently in Knappett 2020. This is not to say that classical archaeology has failed to produce innovative recent work investigating the techniques and infrastructures of pottery production through network analysis or experimental reconstruction; see Hasaki 2012; Sapirstein 2012, 2014; Balachandran 2019; Rodriguez-Alvarez 2019. 61   ABV x.    62  Beazley 1922: 84; also cited in Neer 1997: 15. 63   On Beazley’s drawing practice as an intuitive connection to artistic personalities, see especially Neer 2009. 64   On this point, see also Arrington 2017: 36; and Driscoll 2019: 11: ‘In one sense, the entire book [ARV] is an argument for its own conception, challenging the reader to go forth and figure out for herself Beazley’s working principles.’ 60

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Beazley’s attempts at copying what he saw in Greek vases can provide a contrast to what we think we see in the objects, one that might help us rethink our assumptions and open new avenues in exploring our relationship with antiquity. More than holding out another foil for keeping our assumptions in check, his way of acquiring knowledge through practice can provide a working model for us as researchers. Granted, that model is imperfect in that its methodological grounding remained implicit in his silent drawing. In its focus on gaining know­ ledge about objects, his project also inspires questions about how we come to any knowledge as humans, and it can stimulate new explorations into the inter­ depend­en­cies of learning, sensing, and doing. Such explorations might not yield more evidence about the personalities or identities of ancient vase painters, as was Beazley’s articulated goal, but they may generate a more informed interest into the kinds of environments that gave rise to the skills of the ancient vase painters. Such interests may also route our journeys of discovery to production sites, clay quarries, modern potters’ workshops, and conservation labs in add­ition to museum collections and libraries. Even if many research universities do not consider craft as a field of research, they nevertheless recognize the urgent task of researching the structures that allow objects to become critical knowledge. This knowledge, as this chapter has demonstrated, is not inherent in finished reproductions (the standardized drawings, prints, or photographs) but in the work invested in trying to translate an object. Instead of concealing the impossible task which reproductions are expected to perform, our work should make its deficiency obvious by juxtaposing different modes of visualization and encouraging comparison between them to the extent of finding value in the deficiency itself.

BIBLIOGRAPHY A damson , G. 2014. ‘The Labor of Division: Cabinetmaking and the Production of Knowledge’, in P. H. Smith, A. R. W. Meyers, and H. J. Cook (eds), Ways of Making and Knowing: The Material Culture of Empirical Knowledge (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press), 243–79. A rrington , N. T. 2017. ‘Connoisseurship, Vases and Greek Art and Archaeology’, in J. M. Padgett (ed.), The Berlin Painter and His World: Athenian Vase-Painting in the Early Fifth Century BC (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Art Museum), 21–39. A ymonino , A. 2015. ‘ “Nature Perfected”: The Theory and Practice of Drawing after the Antique’, in A. V. Lauder (ed.), Drawn from the Antique: Artists and the Classical Ideal (London: Sir John Soane’s Museum), 15–78. B alachandran , S. 2019. ‘Bringing Back the (Ancient) Bodies: The Potters’ Sensory Experiences and the Firing of Red, Black and Purple Greek Vases’, Arts 8.2: 70, https://doi.org/10.3390/arts8020070.

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B eazley , J. D. 1922. ‘Citharoedus’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 42: 70–98. Beazley , J. D. 1989. ‘Training of Archaeologists, University Training’, in D. C. Kurtz (ed.), Greek Vases: Lectures by J. D. Beazley (Oxford: Clarendon), 98–102. B erger , J. 2005. Berger on Drawing (Aghabullogue: Occasional). B oardman , J. 1978. ‘Exekias’, American Journal of Archaeology 82: 11–25. B onde , S., and S.  H ouston (eds). 2013. Re-Presenting the Past: Archaeology through Text and Image (Oxford: Oxbow). B usch , W. 2001. ‘Die Neudefinition der Umrisszeichnung in Rom am Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts’, in M. Stuffmann and W. Busch (eds.), Zeichnen in Rom, 1790–1830 (Cologne: Walther König), 11–43. C aylus , A.  C.  P., C omte de . 1752–67. Recueil d’antiquités égyptiennes, étrusques, grecques et romaines, 7 Vols (Paris: Chez Desaint & Saillant). C hamay , J., and S.  A ufrère . 1996. ‘Peiresc (1580–1637): Un précurseur de l’étude des vases grecs’, Antike Kunst 39.1: 38–51. C hifflet , J.-J. 1621. Lacrymae prisco ritu fusae in exsequiis sereniss (Antwerp: Ex Officina Plantiniana). C onze , A. 1902. ‘Ansprache zum Winckelmannsfest’, Archäologischer Anzeiger 3: 167. C ook , R. M. 1992. Greek Painted Pottery, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge). D aston , L., and P. G alison . 2007. Objectivity (New York: Zone). D riscoll , E. 2019. ‘Beazley’s Connoisseurship: Aesthetics, Natural History, and Artistic Development’, in Dossier: Corps antiques: morceaux choisis (Paris and Athens: Éditions de l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales), 101–20. E dgeworth , M. 2006. Ethnographies of Archaeological Practice: Cultural Encounters, Material Transformations (Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press). F laxman , J. 1793. The Iliad of Homer. Engraved by T. Piroli (London: J. Matthews). F laxman , J. 1795. Compositions from the Tragedies of Aeschylus (London: J. Matthews). G oethe , J.-W. 1799. ‘Der Sammler und die Seinigen’, Propyläen 2.2: 26–122. G oethe , J.-W. 1980. ‘Flaxman’s Work [1 April 1799. Not published by Goethe]’, in J. Gage (ed.), Goethe on Art (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press), 222–3. H albertsma , R.  B. 2017. The Canino Connections: The History and Restoration of Ancient Greek Vases from the Excavations of Lucien Bonaparte, Prince of Canino (1775–1840) (Leiden: Sidestone). H all , L. F. 1936. ‘Notes on the Drawings’, in G. Richter (ed.), Red-Figured Athenian Vases in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press), vii–x. H amilton , W., and J. T ischbein . 1791–5. Collection of Engravings by J. H. W. Tischbein from Ancient Vases, Mostly of Pure Greek Workmanship, Discovered in Sepulchres in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies but Chiefly in the Neighbourhood of Naples (Naples: Royal Academy of Painting). H asaki , E. 2012. ‘Craft Apprenticeship in Ancient Greece: Reaching Beyond the Masters’, in W. Wendrich (ed.), Archaeology and Apprenticeship: Body Knowledge, Identity, and Communities of Practice (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press), 171–202. I ngold , T. 2011. Redrawing Anthropology: Materials, Movements, Lines (Farnham: Ashgate).

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I ngold , T. 2013. Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture (London: Routledge). I vins , W. 1953. Prints and Visual Communication (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul). J aubert , S., and A.-F.  L aurens . 2005. ‘Recueils de vases antiques dans la première moitié du XIX siècle: Entre Musées de papier et mise en place de sériations iconographiques, techniques et typologiques’, Journal des Savants 1: 49–99. J enkins , I., and K. S loan (eds). 1996. Vases and Volcanoes: Sir William Hamilton and His Collection (London: British Museum). J ones , S., A. M ac S ween , S. J effrey , R. M orris , and M. H eyworth . 2003. ‘From the Ground Up: The Publication of Archaeological Projects: A User Needs Survey’, Internet Archaeology 14: https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.14.4. K nappett , C. 2010. Thinking through Material Culture: An Interdisciplinary Perspective (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press). K nappett , C. 2020. Aegean Bronze Age Art: Meaning in the Making (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). K urtz , D. C. 1983. The Berlin Painter (Oxford; New York: Clarendon). K urtz , D. C. 1985. ‘Beazley and the Connoisseurship of Greek Vases’, Greek Vases in the J. Paul Getty Museum 2 (OPA 3): 237–50. K urtz , D. C. 2004. ‘A Corpus of Ancient Vases: Hommage à Edmond Pottier’, Revue Archéologique 2: 259–86. L atour , B. 1986. ‘Visualisation and Cognition: Drawing Things Together’, in H. Kuklick (ed.), Knowledge and Society: Studies in the Sociology of Culture Past and Present, Vol. 6 (Greenwich, CT: Jai Press), 1–40. L ucas , G. 2012. Understanding the Archaeological Record (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). M archand , S. 1996. Down from Olympus: Archaeology and Philhellenism in Germany, 1750–1970 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). M archand , T. 2010. ‘Making Knowledge: Explorations of the Indissoluble Relation between Minds, Bodies, and Environment’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 16: 1–21. M asci , M. 2008. Picturae Etruscorum in vasculis: La raccolta vaticana e il collezionismo di vasi antichi nel primo Settecento (Rome: ‘L’Erma’ di Bretschneider). M aynard , P. 2005. Drawing Distinctions: The Varieties of Graphic Expression (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press). M eyer , C. 2020. ‘Ancient Vases in Modern Vitrines: The Sensory Dynamics and Social Implications of Museum Display’, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 63: 91–109. M ontfaucon , B. 1722. L’antiquité expliquée, et représentée en figures, Vol. 3.1: Les usages de la vie (Paris: Chez Florentin Delaulne). M oser , J. 2021. ‘Fungible Things: Economies of Desire in the (De)formation of Chinese Bronzes’, in C.  Meyer and I.  Weinryb (eds), Metalwork. West 86th 28.2: 298–305. M oser , S. 2012. ‘Archaeological Visualization: Early Artifact Illustration and the Birth of the Archaeological Image’, in I. Hodder (ed.), Archaeological Theory Today, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Polity), 292–322.

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M oser , S. 2014. ‘Making Expert Knowledge through the Image: Connections between Antiquarian and Early Modern Scientific Illustration’, Isis 105.1: 58–99. N eer , R. 1997. ‘Beazley and the Language of Connoisseurship’, Hephaistos 15: 7–30. N eer , R. 2009. ‘Connoisseurship: From Ethics to Evidence’, in D.  Yatromanolakis (ed.), An Archaeology of Representations: Ancient Greek Vase-Painting and Contemporary Methodologies (Athens: Institut du Livre, A. Kardamitsa), 25–50. N ørskov , V. 2009. ‘The Affairs of Lucien Bonaparte and the Impact on the Study of Greek Vases’, in V. Nørskov (ed.), The World of Greek Vases (Rome: Edizioni Quasar), 63–76. P asseri , G.  B. 1767–75. Picturae Etruscorum in vasculis: Nunc primum in unum collectae explicationibus, et dissertationibus inlustratae, 3 Vols (Rome: Ex typographio Johannis Zempel). P awlowicz , L.  M., and C.  E.  D ownum . 2021. ‘Applications of Deep Learning to Decorated Ceramic Typology and Classification: A Case Study Using Tusayan White Ware from Northeast Arizona’, Journal of Archaeological Science 130: 1–14. P etherbridge , D. 2009. The Primacy of Drawing: Histories and Theories of Practice (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press). P ollitt , J. 1974. The Ancient View of Greek Art: Criticism, History, and Terminology (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press). R eichhold , K. 1919. Skizzenbuch griechischer Meister, ein Einblick in das griechische Kunststudium auf Grund der Vasenbilder (Munich: F. Bruckmann). R odriguez -A lvarez , E. 2019. Forming Identities: Technological Choices and Pottery Manufacturers in Archaic Corinth (Tucson, AZ: ProQuest Dissertations Publishing). R odríguez P érez , D. 2016. ‘Sir John Beazley’, in T. Mannack, D. Rodríguez Pérez, and C. Neagu (eds), Beazley and Christ Church: 250 Years of Scholarship on Greek Vases (Oxford: Christ Church Library), 25–77. R odríguez P érez , D. 2018. ‘Sir John Beazley’s Notebooks: A New Resource for the Study of Athenian Figure-Decorated Pottery’, Hesperia 87.4: 743–809. R osenblum , R. 1976. The International Style of 1800: A Study in Linear Abstraction (New York: Garland). R ouet , P. 2001. Approaches to the Study of Attic Vases: Beazley and Pottier (Oxford: Oxford University Press). S apirstein , P. 2013. ‘Painters, Potters, and the Scale of the Attic Vase-Painting Industry’, American Journal of Archaeology 117: 493–510. S apirstein , P. 2014. ‘Demographics and Productivity in the Ancient Athenian Pottery Industry’, in J. Oakley (ed.), Athenian Potters and Painters, Vol. 3 (Oxford: Oxbow), 175–86. S chlegel , A.  W. 1799. ‘Über Zeichnungen zu Gedichten und John Flaxman’s Umrisse’, Athenaeum 2: 193–246. S chlegel , K. W. F. 1823. ‘Gemäldebeschreibungen aus Paris und den Niederlanden in den Jahren 1802–1804’, in Europa (1803), Sämtliche Werke, Vol. 6 (Vienna: Jakob Mayer). S chmidt , S. 1999. ‘ “Ein Schatz von Zeichnungen”: Die Erforschung antiker Vasen im 18. Jahrhundert’, in M. Flashar (ed.), 1768: Europa à la grecque: Vasen machen Mode (Munich: Biering and Brinkmann), 29–47.

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S chmidt , S. 2004. ‘Der aktive Betrachter und die Wahrheit der Linie: Die Ästhetik der Umrisszeichnung am Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts’, in H.-U. Cain and H.-P. Müller (eds), Faszination der Linie: Griechische Zeichenkunst auf dem Weg von Neapel nach Europa. Sonderausstellung Antikenmuseum der Universität Leipzig, 21. Oktober 2004–29. Januar 2005 (Leipzig: Antikenmuseum der Universität Leipzig), 22–6. S chmidt , S. 2005. ‘Von der Ausdruckskraft der Linie: Tischbein, Flaxman und die Ästhetik des Umrissstriches’, in S. Schmidt (ed.), Hancarville und die Hamiltonsche Vasensammlung (Stendal: Winckelmann-Gesellschaft), 31–40. S chnapp , A. 1996. The Discovery of the Past: The Origins of Archaeology (London: British Museum). S chnapp , A. 2004. ‘Eduard Gerhard: Founder of Classical Archaeology?’, Modernism/ Modernity 11.1: 169–71. S ennett , R. 2008. The Craftsman (London: Allen Lane). S parkes , B. 1996. The Red and the Black: Studies in Greek Pottery (London: Routledge). T rendall , A. 1973. The Red-Figured Vases of Lucania, Campania and Sicily, Supplement 2 (London: Institute of Classical Studies). V aiani , E. 2016. The Antichità Diverse Album: Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo (London: Royal Collection Trust). V ermeule , C. 1958. ‘Aspects of Scientific Archaeology in the Seventeenth Century: Marble Reliefs, Greek Vases, Manuscripts, and Minor Objects in the Dal PozzoAlbani Drawings of Classical Antiquities’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 102.2: 193–214. V ickers , M. 1985. ‘Artful Crafts: The Influence of Metalwork on Athenian Painted Pottery’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 105: 108–12. V on B othmer , D. 1983. ‘The Execution of the Drawings’, in D. Kurtz, The Berlin Painter (Oxford; New York: Clarendon), 6–8. V on B othmer , D. 1985. ‘Beazley the Teacher’, in D.  C.  Kurtz (ed.), Beazley and Oxford: Lectures Delivered in Wolfson College, Oxford, 28 June 1985 (Oxford: Oxbow), 6–17. W alter , C. 2008. ‘Towards a More “Scientific” Archaeological Tool: The Accurate Drawing of Greek Vases between the End of the Nineteenth and the First Half of the Twentieth Centuries’, in N. Schlanger and J. Nordbladh (eds), Archives, Ancestors, Practices: Archaeology in the Light of its History (New York: Berghahn), 179–90. W ammes , J.  D., M.  E.  M eade , and M.  A.  F ernandes . 2016. ‘The Drawing Effect: Evidence for Reliable and Robust Memory Benefits in Free Recall’, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 69.9: 1752–76. W illats , J., and F. D urand . 2005. ‘Defining Pictorial Style: Lessons from Linguistics and Computer Graphics’, Axiomathes 15.3: 319–51. W illiams , D. 1996. ‘Refiguring Attic Red-Figure: A Review Article’, Revue Archéologique 2: 227–52. W inckelmann , J.-J. 2006. History of the Art of Antiquity, tr. H.  F.  Mallgrave (Los Angeles, CA: The Getty Research Institute).

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3

Winckelmann’s Elegant Simplicity From Three to Two Dimensions and Back Again Amy C. Smith

In 1769 the potter Josiah Wedgwood (1730–95) wrote to his business partner, Thomas Bentley, of conquering France: ‘We will fashion our Porcelain after their own hearts, and captivate them with the elegance and simplicity of the Ancients. But do they love simplicity? Are you certain the French Nation will be pleased with simplicity in their Vessells?’1 Presumably in response to Bentley’s reassurance, Wedgwood enthused: ‘I am fully satisfyed with your reasons for the Virtuosi of France being fond of Elegant Simplicity, & shall, more than ever, make the idea a leading principle in my usefull, as well as in our Ornamental works.’2 The elegant or ‘noble simplicity’ to which Wedgwood alludes is a catchphrase long associated with the pioneer art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–68), who combined it with ‘silent grandeur’.3 Winckelmann’s edle Einfalt und stille Grösse, based on the idea of a ‘central form’, was embodied in ancient vases as well as the statues of Italy.4 Like so much that Winckelmann publicized, simplicity was in vogue before he came to prominence, although he gave the concept new meaning in the light of his idealizing vision and experience of antiquities. He thus influenced an evolving taste for simple design among a widening circle of connoisseurs. The pure simplicity of porcelain whose manufacturers followed or imitated Classical design—as compared to the Baroque, especially Rococo styles

 Farrar 1903: 301–2. While highly relevant to the present discussion, Tordella 2017 came to the author’s attention only after the final typescript had been submitted to the publisher. 2   Farrar 1903: 273 (17 September 1769). 3   Winckelmann 1765: 30 (IV) and 1885: passim. See Smith 2017 and Stammler 1962. 4   Stafford 1980: 65. 1

Amy C. Smith, Winckelmann’s Elegant Simplicity: From Three to Two Dimensions and Back Again In: Drawing the Greek Vase. Edited by: Caspar Meyer and Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis, Oxford University Press. © Caspar Meyer and Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192856128.003.0003

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favoured in European courts—suited popular progressive agendas.5 The ­commercial exploitation of Neoclassical ceramics at the end of the eighteenth century, to which Wedgwood’s correspondence refers, is a later phase of an evolving taste for ‘Classics’ and the antique that suffused many aspects of life, even among the middle class, from the end of the seventeenth century.6 This essay is an investigation of the contribution of the art of drawing to this commercial exploitation of the simplicity of design in and on Greek vases, particularly as influenced by Winckelmann.7 It begins therefore with an investigation of the interaction of inherited representational strategies across reproductive media: what was the effect of rendering and disseminating these three-dimensional artefacts—ancient vases—and their two-dimensional dec­or­ ations through two-dimensional drawings? And how in turn did the dis­sem­in­ ation of these drawings influence the creation of three-dimensional reproductions, adaptations, and fictions? After consideration of the art of early modern drawing and its changing evocation of Greek vases, I will show that Winckelmann’s tastes influenced contemporary collectors, notably Sir William Hamilton, the British Envoy to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and artists. Through this influence Winckelmann extended the prominence of aesthetic ‘simplicity’ in European visual culture, as exemplified by the drawings of sixteenth-century Renaissance artists, to an enthusiasm for Greek art, especially in Britain.8

E A R LY MODER N DR AW I NG OF GR EEK VA SE S A N D T H EI R DISEGNI

Winckelmann and other curiosi of his time developed a taste for the simple fig­ ural drawings or designs—known in Italian as disegni—on ancient black- and red-figure vases—now attributed to the Greeks—whose shapes exhibit similarly clean contours.9 These decorations, nowadays habitually defined as paintings, are rather drawings. While Greek vase painters used colours (white, yellow/gold, coral-red, and purple) to enliven or distinguish figures on some of their works, the majority were applied in a single colour.10 Their monochrome nature encourages us to call these decorations drawings. The challenge of distinguishing drawing from painting goes back to the invention of painting, according to the Roman scholar Pliny the Elder: ‘As to the Greeks . . . all agree that it originated in tracing

6   Hall 2020: 20; Richards 1999: 206.   Hall and Stead 2020.  Harloe 2020: 138–9 encourages Classical archaeologists to collaborate with eighteenth-century scholars in order to understand ‘the appeal of classical shapes, iconography, and ornament’ to a broader range of audiences than hitherto considered. 8 9 10   Havens 1953.   Stafford 1980: 71.   Noble 1988. 5 7

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lines round the human shadow.’11 Winckelmann likewise sees the i­ nterconnectedness of drawing and painting and considers illustrations on Greek vases as paintings or preliminary sketches thereof.12 Since at least the fifteenth century, artists, collectors, and others had become acquainted with ancient vases and their disegni through the medium of drawing. Artists’ sketchbooks and collectors’ albums included drawings of Greek vessels and, to a lesser degree, the drawings that decorated them. Each of these representations had its own idiosyncrasies—skewed perspectives, biased restorations, occluded or selected details, illustrations of the decorated surfaces rather than the underlying artefact—so that viewers were challenged to understand the archaeological artefact itself. While the watercolours of black- and red-figure vases by Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc (1580–1637) are clearly and precisely rendered, the drawings in Cassiano dal Pozzo’s paper museum vary greatly in their effects.13 From c.1615 Cassiano had sent artists, including Nicolas Poussin, to draw the antiquities of Rome, but most drawings of vessels in his Antichità diverse album are copied from earlier codices.14 These secondary drawings by anonymous artists generally show views of the complete vessels in plausible three-dimensional renderings that convey their roles as functional objects and their images with fidelity.15 Michel-Ange de la Chausse’s 1690 publication of his cabinet contains chiaroscuro drawings of entire pots shaded so heavily as to obscure some of the figural decoration (Figure 3.1).16 By the early eighteenth century vases were shown in exaggerated perspective, with mouths skewed, either turning towards (Figure 3.1) or away (Figure 3.2) from the viewer, so as to emphasize the three-dimensionality of the vase. Yet each vase was rendered with the groundline of the figural scene, and thus the scene itself, in an implausibly horizontal alignment. De la Chausse’s drawings are more polished, however, than those in Spiega de’ vasi antichi, a catalogue published more than half a century later (1755) to document the collection of Marchese Felice Maria Mastrilli, from the excavations of Greek tombs at Nola, in Campania.17 The Spiega drawings, which are helpfully presented together with measurements and technical details—such as the colour and quality of the clay, and scholarly commentaries—are careful renderings of both the shapes and decoration.18 Inscriptions are transcribed so as to render the 12   NH 35.5; see also NH 35.43.   Winckelmann 1965: III, 397.   For Peiresc, see Chamay 1999: 11–5 and C. Meyer in this volume. 14   Vaiani 2016: 24–7. Turner 1993: 142 and Herklotz 1999: 138 recognized that two hands were responsible for equal parts of the album. 15   Dietrich von Bothmer attributed an Apulian bell krater to the Eton-Nika Painter on the basis of its drawing in this album: Burn 2003: 140, fig. 125; Bailey 1992: 19 (Franks II, fol. 106, 482); Vermeule 1960: 32. 16 17 18   Lyons 1992: 2; De Witte 1865: 18.   Lyons 2007.   Lyons 1992. 11 13

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F igure 3.1.  Illustrations of a pelike, from Michel-Ange de la Chausse, Romanum museum, sive Thesaurus eruditæ antiquitatis (Rome, 1690), 101, pls 1–2.

Greek legible to those who could read and understand it. In the same decade Caylus, himself an engraver, began to publish his mammoth seven-volume Recueil (1752–67), with plenteous illustrations. As usual for the time, these technically excellent drawings filled in missing parts of the decoration according to the guesswork of the illustrator and inaccurately conveyed transcriptions of the Greek dipinti.19 Whether or not such inaccuracies were intended to mislead, by making the Greek illegible, they perpetuated the outdated myth that the artworks were Etruscan rather than Greek.20 The Spiega drawings remain a unique experiment, for the etchings in Giovanni Battista Passeri’s 1767 catalogue, Picturae Etruscorum in Vasculis nunc primum in unum collectae, followed de la Chausse’s model (e.g. Figure  3.4, which represents the vase shown in Figure  3.3). This publication, printed with Winckelmann’s permission when he was Papal Antiquary, is illustrated with drawings of the primary and secondary faces of the vases. In a few cases details of the drawings on the objects were illustrated separately in split reproductions. The 19   E.g. Caylus 1752–67: pl. XXV transcribes ΗΟ ΠΑΙΣ ΚΑΛΟΣ (meaning ‘The boy is beautiful’) as ΗΔΠΔΥS/ΚΔΥΔS. 20   For more on Caylus and ‘Etruscomania’, see Smith 2018: 20–2.

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F igure 3.2.  Illustrations of a red-figure pelike and an amphora from the collection of the sculptor François Girardon (1628–1715). De Montfaucon 1719: pl. 71.

relatively arbitrary distinction of fronts from backs—normally predicated on the position of the handles on two-handled objects—persists until the present day and conspires to obscure the third dimension of these ‘in the round’ artefacts. Passeri’s catalogue was published contemporaneously with Winckelmann’s own Monumenti, itself beset with production and reception problems, not least because of Winckelmann’s untimely death in Trieste the next year.21 Reviewers were disappointed with its illustrations, unsigned—at Winckelmann’s insistence— except for that of the Antinöos statue, by N.  Mogalli.22 In this iconographic   On his death, 420 of the 600 copies remained unsold: Ferrari and Cavadini 2017: 25.   Winckelmann 1767: pl. 180. Giovanni Battista Casanova (1730–95) was originally to execute all of them: Lattanzi 2017; Lolla 2002: 436–7. 21 22

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F igure 3.3.  A Paestan red-figure bell krater attributed to Python, c.360–40 bc. Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology, University of Reading 51.7.11. Copyright University of Reading.

study, originally entitled Explanation of the difficult points of the mythology, customs and history of the Ancients, taken from unpublished ancient monuments, Winckelmann subordinated the monuments to the text, which considered only the subjects illustrated on the monuments, specifically illustrations of Homeric mythology.23 Thus Winckelmann tried to distance himself from the traditional antiquarian publication of monuments, archaeological finds, or engravings thereof. Yet this ‘degradation of the engraver went hand in hand with the devaluation of the material and visual aspect of the monuments’.24 Tellingly the French translation (1808–10) was more successful than the original, not least because its editor, Antoine Étienne Nicolas Fantin des Odoards (1738–1820), employed an engraver, François Anne David, to update and ‘Neoclassisize’ its drawings.25

  Winckelmann 1767: 2, 80. He explained the earlier title in a letter to Marpurg, 8 December 1762: Rehm and Diepolder 1952–7: 2, 276. 24 25   Lolla 2002: 433–4, quote at 437.   Ferrari and Cavadini 2017: 35–45. 23

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F igure 3.4.  Illustration of the Paestan bell krater in Figure 3.3. Passeri 1767–75: pl. 123.

Like most antiquarian works from which he tried to distance his Monumenti, Winckelmann had avoided pure outline engravings, except in the case of a Greek vase in the collection of his friend Anton Raphael Mengs (1728–79), a Nolan amphora subsequently attributed to the Dutuit Painter, depicting Athena pouring a drink for Herakles (Figure 3.5).26 Hamilton published a rendition of the same vase (Figure 3.6), almost simultaneously, in the catalogue of his first collection of vases, Antiquités étrusques, grecques et romaines, tirées du cabinet de M.  Hamilton, envoyé extraordinaire de S.M.  Britannique en cour de Naples (1766–7), hereafter AEGR.27 A comparison of the two is revealing. In the Monumenti drawing the drapery folds on Athena’s epiblema are true to form— pointed rather than rounded—and the proportions of Herakles’ kantharos   D’Hancarville 1766–7: 3, pl. 49. This vase is now in Paris: Louvre G203, BAPD 203142.  See Lissarrague and Reed 1997 (esp. for its publication in 1767 despite the ‘1766’ date) and Heringman 2013, II.3. AEGR included some vases that did not belong to Hamilton and did not include all of Hamilton’s own collection. Of the forty-one vases Hamilton obtained from the Mastrilli Collection, now in the British Museum, only sixteen were published in AEGR: Lyons 1992: 20. 26 27

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F igure 3.5.  Illustration of a Nolan amphora, formerly in the collection of the painter Anton Raphael Mengs, attributed to the Dutuit Painter. Winckelmann 1767: pl. 159.

are  closer to the Dutuit Painter’s rendition. Winckelmann clearly approves of such contemporary renderings in preference to earlier ones: Three vases, marked with Greek writing, are contained in the Mastrilli collection at Naples, which were made known, for the first time, by the Canon Mazzocchi, badly drawn, and worse engraved; but they appeared afterwards more correctly drawn at the same time with the Hamilton Vases.28

AEGR, written by Pierre François Hugues Baron d’Hancarville (1719–1805)— another experimental work that suffered financial and other setbacks29—employed both colour and three-dimensional renderings among its engravings. The 520 plates include 99 illustrations of ornaments and 421 of vases, of which 180   Winckelmann 1849: 263 (III.IV.13).   Brylowe 2008: 27–8, 35; Lissarrague and Reed 1997: 287; Jenkins 1996: 49. For the reception of Hamilton’s catalogues see Kalkanis 2012. See also N. Dietrich and M. Gaifmann in this volume. 28 29

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F igure 3.6.  Illustration of the scene on the Nolan amphora depicted in Figure 3.5. D’Hancarville 1766–7: pl. 3.4.

were coloured. The richly bordered engravings were sold individually from the outset. The combination of the line and the contrasting colours (red/black) emphasized the two-dimensionality of the art.30 Some illustrations showed vases as three-dimensional objects, in perspective, while others showed ‘unrolled’ scenes. Many showed decorations as projected on planar surfaces. Few were shown in pure outlines, although d’Hancarville brought attention to the profile drawings of a vase ‘where all its parts are measured’.31 The drawings of Mengs’s Nolan amphora (Figure 3.6), however, fell short of the promise of ‘perfection and fidelity in the drawing’.32

EL EG A N T SI M PL ICI T Y

D’Hancarville appeals to the eighteenth-century appreciation of the art of drawing and adulation of Raphael, as had Winckelmann, even to the extent of inflating 31   Rosenblum 1976: 54.   D’Hancarville 1766–7: 1, 152.   D’Hancarville 1766–7: 1, 4.

30 32

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F igure 3.7.  Reproduction of a Raphael drawing from the collection of Queen Christina of Sweden. D’Hancarville 1766–7: pl. 2.20.

the value of these paintings, with the effect of extending an interest in Greek vases to an ever wider audience. In ‘Preliminary Discourse on Painting’—his only text that considers the history of ancient vases—d’Hancarville integrates seventeenth-century French art theory with references to Classical sources and a reproduction of a Raphael drawing from the collection of Queen Christina of Sweden (Figure 3.7).33 Elsewhere he picks out two vases—one Corinthian and another Attic—as being ‘not unworthy of Raphael himself’.34 Yet for Winckelmann the similarity between the works of Greek vase painters and Raphael is in the mastery of the contour line: . . . just as Raphael’s first sketch of his ideas—the contour of a head or a whole figure drawing with a single unbroken sweep of a pen—reveals the master to the connoisseur no less than his finished drawings, so the great dexterity and assurance of ancient artists are seen in these vessels more than in other works. A collection of them is a treasure trove of drawing.35

  D’Hancarville 1766–7, 2.21; see Weissert 2005: 6 (fig. 5).   D’Hancarville 1766–7, 1.166, with Constantine 1993: 74. For d’Hancarville see also Vickers 1987 and 1985–6; Haskell 1984. 35   Winckelmann 1885: 37; 1765: 52; 2006: 178. See Kreuzer 1959: 36, and discussion by M. Gaifman in this volume. 33 34

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Winckelmann’s attention to this contour or outline that defines the image of a person, animal, or inanimate object—for which he uses the terms Zeichnung and Kontur—permeates all of his written works, culminating in his first chapter of his Monumenti Antichi Inediti (1767), a volume that Barbara Stafford describes as ‘a constellation of concepts which revolves around the idea of the beautiful, and which had a catalytic effect on the emergence of outline drawing in the late eighteenth century’.36 Indeed, the linear ‘international style’ of Neoclassicism, which succeeded the painterly style of the Rococo, resulted both from and in an aesthetic tradition that championed a simpler style of drawing that focussed—as in Greek vase painting—on the contours or outlines.37 Such simplicity had philosophical and aesthetic dimensions. The Académie Lamoignon—Paris’s most prestigious seminar group, which met weekly from May 1667 to discuss art, literature, and politics—celebrated the simplicité of the Old Testament and Iliad, and promoted a lifestyle simpler than that of their hedonistic contemporaries.38 Fénelon, DuBois, Rollin, and Voltaire wrote of ‘noble simplicity’ and the Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–1713) extolled its virtue in painting.39 Anne Claude Comte de Caylus (1692–1765), the French antiquarian whose works Wedgwood had consulted, first associated the concept of simplicity with ancient pots: ‘The elegance and simplicity of their shapes merits attention.’40 Winckelmann echoed Caylus’s aesthetic concern for shapes in his celebration of the humble finds from Herculaneum: What deserves our attention most, in the utensils of the ancients, particularly their vessels, is the elegant form of them; a circumstance, in which all our modern artists must yield to the ancients. All those beautiful forms are founded on the principles of good taste, and may be compared with those of a handsome young man, whose attitudes abound with natural graces. It may be said, that this gracefulness extends even to the handles and ears of their vessels. Would our artists but endeavour to imitate them, their works would soon put on another face.41

By 1789 a ‘Platonic’ revival saw Blake, Hegel, and Schelling popularizing a style of drawing whereby a simple line was understood to evoke the essence of a person or eventually a thing, in their zeal for artworks that were emblems of transcendental reality.42

37   Stafford 1980: 65. Winckelmann 1767: 2.1.   Stafford 1980: 76. 39   LeBrun 1961.   Jackson 1973: 27. 40   Caylus 1752–67: 1.41. Wedgwood was lent the first two volumes of Caylus 1752–67 in 1767 and purchased a copy in 1769: Meteyard 1865–6: 1, 480 n. 1. 41   Anon. trans. from the French, 1771 (1762): 78. 42   Kant 1790: para. 14, prioritized drawing over colouring. See Himmelmann 1971: 602; Starobinski 1973: 113; Stafford 1980: 71–2. 36 38

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CON TOU R A N D E X PR E S SION: T H ICK A N D T H I N

Zeal for simplicity arguably encouraged Hamilton’s further acquisitions. After the 1772 sale of his first collection to the British Parliament for the British Museum, he went to Nola, in Campania, to build a second collection around that of the counts of Porcinari.43 In his updates to his Geschichte, Winckelmann had compared the outline drawings of some such vases from Campania to Raphael’s drawings and the late Baroque school in Rome.44 Hamilton judged his second collection to be of better quality than the first, because of its preponderance of Nolan material (e.g. Figure 3.8), with simpler drawings and shapes than those found on South Italian vases. Hamilton published this second collection between 1791 and 1795, under the title Collection of Engravings from Ancient Vases Mostly of Pure Greek Workmanship Discovered in Sepulchres in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.45 Hamilton deliberately presented the simplicity of design and decoration of these vases in this catalogue. Together with his students, the German artist Wilhelm Tischbein (1751–1829), by then Director of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Napoli, painstakingly engraved the illustrations for this publication in outline and with little ornament. Hamilton explains his motivations for publication in the introduction: ‘By these means the purchase becoming easy, it will be in the power of the lovers of antiquity and artists to reap the desired profit from such excellent models.’46 The text hardly refers to anything outside the pictures on the vases, and the simplicity of the drawings does not detract from their primacy. Since few images are of whole vases, however, the detailed drawings of the decorative surfaces triumphed over any other information the objects might provide. The vase’s three-dimensional identity and utilitarian function were already forgotten. Tischbein’s alternately thick and thin lines seem to evoke the craft of the Greek artists, who used thick lines for contours or outlines and thinner lines for drapery and musculature. Perhaps this corresponds to Winckelmann’s Zeichnung und Ausdruck, which Fuseli translates as ‘contour and expression’ to designate the graphic repertoire of the Greek painters famed in the literary tradition.47 That is, while by Zeichnung Winckelmann refers to the outlines and contours, perhaps with Ausdruck he denotes the thinner drawn lines that further

43   Tischbein stated that there were 1591 vases in Hamilton’s second collection: von Alten 1872: 84. See also Lyons 2007. The sale is recorded in National Archives: CE 4, Original Papers, 1743–1946, Acts and Votes of Parliament Relating to the British Museum, 1753–1824 (20 March 1772) 78. Burn 2003: 142 counts 730 vases Hamilton sold to the British Museum. 44   Winckelmann 1849: 271 (III.IV.35). 45   Hamilton 1791–5; Lyons 1992: 9. See A. Petsalis-Diomidis in this volume. 46 47   Hamilton 1791–5: 2, 4.   Winckelmann 1765.

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F igure 3.8.  Pelike from Nola, attributed to the Niobid Painter. London, British Museum 1772,0320.23 (E381; BAPD 206984). Photograph Museum.

articulate anatomy, drapery, or other details that, for example, convey the (facial) expression or even the artist’s expressive style.48 Viewers not familiar with the vases, however, misunderstood the alternating thick and thin lines: according to a drawing convention that evolved in the 1790s, varying thickness was intended to represent pictorial depth and incident light.49 It is on this very point that the volume received criticism from a certain G. Cumberland: What shall we say to our state of the Arts in 1795, when professed Artists, and professed dilettanti, have discovered so very unmathematical an idea of form in general, as to publish works copied from the ancients, or invented in their stile, with Outlines thick and thin alternately, like the flourishes of a penman? . . . In making this observation, I do not scruple to say, that I allude to two books lately published; the very   For the varied uses of the term see Der deutsche Wortschatz von 1600 bis heute, https://www.dwds. de/wb/Ausdruck#1 (13 June 2021). 49   Busch 2001: 26–8. 48

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tasteful Homer and Eschylus of Mr. Flaxman; and the last volume of Sir William Hamilton’s Grecian vases. The last volume, so long expected, so earnestly desired, seems to have given a death’s blow to all hope of ever seeing a faithful tracing of any antique design on copper-plate . . . and Mr. Tischbein has presented us with a heavy translation of these Greek vases, finely flourished, but materially unlike the originals, if proportion, character of heads, stile of hair, or flow of drapery, were considered as worth preserving.50

It is unlikely that Cumberland had seen Hamilton’s originals, certainly not the second collection drawn by Tischbein, as one quarter had been lost off the Scilly Isles on 10 December 1798 in the Colossus shipwreck, while the rest he sold to Thomas Hope for £4,724.51 The works of John Flaxman (1755–1826), to which Cumberland refers, however, spurred the fashion for outline drawing all’antica in books. When Flaxman went to Rome in 1787 at the behest of Wedgwood to supervise his modellers, he produced the book illustrations that cemented his fame and influence throughout Europe, starting with The Odyssey of Homer (1793). His crisp outline drawings were mostly works of his imagination.52 They seem to convey the drawing style of Classical Athenian red-figure artists, whose work was familiar from the finds from Nola that Winckelmann and Hamilton had admired. Flaxman the sculptor, however, had used thinner lines not so much for articulation of musculature and drapery—as had the Classical Greek vase painters—but to ‘flesh out’ his figures and indicate incident light that was in turn suggestive of volume and depth, and enhanced the three-dimensionality of his figures. As Werner Busch explains, he shared this style, which emerged in the 1790s, with a disparate international group of Neoclassical artists in Italy and Germany, especially Antonio Canova (1757–1822) and Asmus Jacob Carstens (1754–98).53 Thomas Kirk (1765–97), a painter and engraver also associated with the Royal Academy, illustrated and edited Outlines from the Figures and Compositions upon the Greek, Roman, and Etruscan Vases of the late Sir William Hamilton (1804), ‘a safe, politically and morally redeemed rendering of Hamilton’s projects into a single-volume, English-language-only anthology’.54 Kirk also embraced the ideal­iza­tion of Classical beauty, as he claims to have selected the most tasteful scenes from Hamilton’s two publications. He thus put yet another filter—an artist’s curatorial hand—between the viewer and the object. This hand also lessened the contrast of thick and thin lines and thus further simplified even Tischbein’s lines, which had been influential because of their simplicity. Kirk seems not to

  Cumberland 1796: 16.   Smallwood and Woodford 2003; Vickers 1987. See also A. Petsalis-Diomidis in this volume. 52   Watkins and Bindman 2013; Wickham 2010; Wiebensohn 1964: 35. 53 54   Busch 2001: 11.   Brylowe 2008: 47. 50 51

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have been familiar with the actual vases; while he cites printed sources, he makes no reference to the Hamilton collection in the British Museum.55 As drawings of objects are already translations, it is naturally easier to reproduce drawings of vases than the original three-dimensional objects they represent. Kirk’s drawings conveyed little of the artistry of the originals, but through them Hamilton’s vases finally reached a wider audience at an affordable price: £2 2s as compared to £20–40 for a four-volume folio set.56

A RT ISTS’ USE OF DR AW I NG S OF GR EEK VA SE S

Hamilton had been neither earnest nor effective in his attempts to make the publication of his first collection accessible to artists.57 Despite his ‘hope that Artists, thus enlightened in the true principles of their Art, will soon annihilate those Gothick forms which habit alone renders supportable’, the illustrations in AEGR came at a price well beyond the reach of the average artist, for he had prepared his catalogue to be ‘equally proper for the compleating of a well understood Collections of Prints and designs, or to furnish in a manner not only agreeable but useful and instructive, the Cabinet of a Man of Taste and letters’.58 In the end his expensive volumes were fit for the cabinets of princes, so Hamilton wrote to Wedgwood in March 1773, promising to send rather than sell him the plates. When Hamilton’s brother-in-law, Lord Cathcart, eventually lent the plates to Wedgwood, the artist . . . endeavoured to preserve the stile and spirit or if you please the elegant simplicity of the antique forms, and so doing to introduce all the variety I was able, and thus Sir  W.  Hamilton assures me I may venture to do, and that it is the true way of copying the antique.59

Hamilton was also emphatic about the importance of autopsy, and in the aforementioned note to Wedgwood encouraged him ‘to be very attentive to the simplicity and elegance of the forms, which is the chief article, and you cannot consult the originals in the museum too often’.60 Wedgwood shared Hamilton’s hope that ‘[t]he collection of Etruscan vases in the British Museum will ever be resorted to for the finest models of elegant and simple forms’.61 His enthusiasm for first-hand study is evidenced by his investigation of the Portland (or Barberini) 56 57   Kirk 1804: v.   Edinburgh Review 8 (1804): 487.   Constantine 2001: 73.   D’Hancarville 1766 (1767): preface (repeated in Geschichte [SW III: 396]) and 1, 168. 59   Finer and Savage 1965: 317 (28 June 1789) and 62, for Lord Cathcart. For Wedgwood’s relationship with Hamilton see Ramage 1990. 60   Morrison 1893: 1, 19. 61   16 June 1787 from Wedgwood to Hamilton. Finer and Savage 1965: 307. 55 58

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vase. This cameo—‘myrrhine’—glass amphora, first recorded by Peiresc, had been in the collection of the Barberini family for 150 years, until James Byres sold it to Hamilton in 1782.62 When Hamilton auctioned it, in 1784, Flaxman wrote to Wedgwood urging him to come to London to see the vase, as he had just done.63 It is clear that Wedgwood availed himself of every opportunity to conduct first-hand study of ancient artefacts.64 Wedgwood had been trying to copy the work, which he finally obtained on loan from the son of its owner, the Duchess of Portland. Then he complained to Hamilton: When I first engaged in this work, and had Montfaucon [1719] only to copy, I ­proceeded with spirit, and sufficient assurance that I should be able to equal, or excel if permitted, that copy of the vase; but now that I can indulge myself with full and repeated examinations of the original work itself, my crest is much fallen, and I should scarcely muster sufficient resolution to proceed if I had not, too precipitately perhaps, pledged my self to many of my friends to attempt it in the best manner I am able.65

F igure 3.9.  A page from Flaxman’s sketchbook depicting, among other things, the pelike shown in Figure 3.8. © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

  The vase is now in London, British Museum 1945,0927.1. 64   Reilly 1992: 315.   Dyer 1916, 541–4. 65   Finer and Savage 1965: 295. Just as Montfaucon’s work had provided him with source material, Wedgwood had freely used Caylus’s Recueil as a source of inspiration rather than reproduction in his creation of lamps, cameos, plaques, and vases. 62 63

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F igure 3.10.  Frontispiece of d’Hancarville 1766–7, with a dedication to Hamilton’s stepbrother, King George III, showing the pelike illustrated in Figure 3.8.

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Flaxman’s zeal for autopsy is likewise evidenced by his use of real Greek ceramics in his studio, although he also made use of drawings of Hamilton’s collections: perhaps Wedgwood had given him access to the AEGR plates. A page from Flaxman’s sketchbook (Figure  3.9) reproduces the shape and designs from a pelike now in the British Museum (Figure 3.8) that had been in the collections of both Mastrilli and Hamilton and is published in AEGR.66 Although the British Museum purchased it from Hamilton in 1772, it is unlikely to have been displayed there before 1773. Flaxman’s acquaintance with it through AEGR, however, is revealed by the fact that his copy of the shape of this vase at the top (near centre) repeats its depiction in the lower right corner of the frontispiece of that volume (Figure 3.10).

A RT ISTS’ USE OF DR AW I NG S OF PA I N T ED DECOR AT ION ON GR EEK VA SE S

Flaxman used Tischbein’s simple line drawings of Hamilton’s second collection for his Odyssey illustrations as well as his work for Wedgwood. His 1776 Apotheosis of Homer scene is based on Tischbein’s drawing of Hamilton’s calyx krater, now in the British Museum, which shows a musical contest.67 It is clear that, despite the absorption of private collections into public museums, most designers employed in the potteries worked primarily from drawings and not from the pots in their adoption, imitation, and replication of forms and designs from antiquity. Wedgwood’s enthusiasm for first-hand scrutiny of the Portland Vase, noted above, is in fact the exception that emphasizes the rarity of his opportunity. Were Wedgwood’s and Flaxman’s contemporaries also influenced by AEGR or other publications of vase collections? Flaxman included AEGR among desiderata of ‘Books essentially useful in the Arts’, which the Royal Academy Council resolved to purchase, but ‘there is no evidence of a copy having entered the RA Library until the present incomplete set arrived on 6 August 1835 as part of Prince Hoare’s bequest to the Academy of books and prints from his library in London’.68 Perhaps the relative expense and unavailability of Hamilton’s first vase publication simply inhibited artists from receiving inspiration from it. The influence of the catalogue of the second collection was greater than that of the first, because of both its simpler line drawings and the fact that it was translated into German   Ramage 1989. The vase is illustrated in d’Hancarville 1766–7: 1, pl. 122.   London, British Museum 1772,03.20.26 (E460; BAPD 213525); Hamilton 1791–5: fig. 130. On the Odyssey illustrations, see Schmidt 2005; Burn 2003: 144; Wiebensohn 1964. 68   At a meeting on 23 October 1801 (Council Minutes III, 113–14), https://www.royalacademy.org. uk/art-artists/book/collection-of-etruscan-greek-and-roman-antiquities-from-the-cabinet-of-the (accessed 7 July 2018). 66 67

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from 1797 to 1800. Yet Kirk’s drawings that were adaptations of Tischbein’s (as explained above) were even simpler. Josiah Spode II (1755–1827) reproduced pots from both of Hamilton’s collections in his ‘Greek’ series of blue-and-white transfer ware from 1806 (Figures  3.11 and  3.12).69 In creating the transfers Spode’s designers are said to have consulted primarily Kirk’s secondary engravings in Outlines.70 Winckelmann’s greatest influence on painters and sculptors was through his last publication, Monumenti, ironically insofar as its one hundred engravings were more influential than the text. Despite complaints about their quality, many of these engravings were copied, for example, by Mengs (e.g. Perseus and Andromeda, 1777), Jacques-Louis David (Leonidas at Thermopylae, 1811–14), and Canova (Theseus and Minotaur, 1783). In Mengs, with whom he had worked on the decoration of the Villa Albani, Winckelmann had found a partner for his theorizing on lines, enthusiasm for Greek design, and imitation of an­tiquity.71 He had dedicated his Geschichte to Mengs, whom he then considered the best modern painter, bar Raphael himself; but by the 1760 publication of Description des pierres gravées du feu Baron de Stosch, Winckelmann had abandoned his idea that modern art could match that of antiquity.72 In Abhandlung von der Fähigkeit der Empfindung des Schönen in der Kunst und dem Unterrichte in derselben (1763), he writes rather of observation and contemplation of ­beauty.73 By the 1767 publication of Monumenti, Winckelmann had lost hope that Mengs might herald an artistic renaissance. In the Monumenti preface he complains that aesthetics had been subordinated to hermeneutic and antiquarian expectations; he encourages artists to attend to ‘manners’ of antiquity; and he concludes that the Greek imagination—not the climate—was responsible for the beauty of their art.74 According to Heyne and others, Winckelmann had taken on the guise of an antiquarian.75

CONCLUSION

In the second half of the eighteenth century the Greek vase was subjected to competing interests—aesthetic, mercantile, and technical—that agreed on the line as the preferred means of representation of the profile of a vessel and any  http://www.spodeceramics.com/pottery/printed-designs/patterns/literature-mythology-arts/ greek (accessed 7 July 2018). 70   Williams 1949: 185. Brylowe 2008. 71   Potts 1980. See also Roettgen 2013: 125 and 1999–2003: 2, 156–62. 72   Micheli 2017: 261 suggests Winckelmann’s work on the Stosch gems, from 1757, encouraged him to champion the primacy of the ‘pure line of design’. 73 74 75   Lattanzi 2017.   Winckelmann 1767: xxxvi.   Heyne 1963: 23; see Harloe 2017. 69

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F igure 3.11.  Blue-and-white transfer ware dresser plate from the Greek series, after 1806, depicting Zeus with his thunderbolt. Photograph by the author, with the kind permission of the Trustees of the Spode Museum Trust.

figural decoration thereon. The vase is not alone: to this day much arch­aeo­ logic­al material is represented by drawings that make it easily intelligible to students and scholars trained in the conventions of its presentation. The drawn line has prevailed as a design element and as the preferred means of archaeological illustration. The reasons for its persistence range from its ease of execution and effectiveness in communication to the relative economy of its reproduction. The ancient Greek vase itself was redefined, at the end of the eighteenth century, particularly by those who had not seen it first-hand. Those beyond the elite circles of collectors and antiquaries familiar with the history of drawings of Greek

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F igure 3.12.  Hamilton 1791–5: 1, pl. 31, source of the vase image shown in Figure 3.11.

vases could have misunderstood or ignored the conventions whereby it had come to be presented in a linear two-dimensional format. It evolved from a shapeless and disproportionate three-dimensional artefact hidden in the shadows of antiquarian texts to a bearer of meaning, conveyed through precise yet subjective linear renderings of its figural scenes. The Greek vase thus played an important part in the triumph of the line by the nineteenth century. Since then the Greek vase has been represented, and thus remembered and revered, as a simple image on a flat surface, while the vessel itself, its material constitution, has often been sidelined. The foldout pages in AEGR and its idealized, coloured, but flattened images of the scenes with which Hamilton’s Greek vases were decorated have been reproduced and redrawn in subsequent scholarship. Their contrasting black and red colours draw attention to the contour line that separates the colours and thus reinforces the flatness of the image. Yet each redrawing introduces new stylistic changes and aberrations from the original vase ‘paintings’ that they sought to illustrate. The thinnest lines that describe the details of musculature, drapery, and much else—perhaps Winckelmann’s Ausdruck or ‘expression’—are lost from all but the most precise renderings. In the art of Flaxman and subsequent artists, these details were replaced with indications of pictorial depth and incident light. In calling attention to the elegant contours of Greek vases and the drawings that

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decorated them, after all, Winckelmann had set in motion an aestheticization of the Greek vase that transformed it from an antiquarian curiosity to high art.76 The proliferation of drawings of Greek vases—which did not constitute the art that Caylus, Hamilton, and Winckelmann had urged artists to create in imitation of ancient vases—perhaps discouraged Winckelmann’s zeal for the art of imitation.77 Do viewers of Flaxman’s art—whether flat line drawings or the three-dimensional reliefs of his designs replicated by Wedgwood—realize that his ancient creations are largely imaginary? Does it matter to them? The gaudy orange outlines on Spode’s blue-and-white ‘Greek’ pattern (Figure 3.11) recall the shapes of the original Greek vessels whose drawings Kirk purported to represent (e.g. Figure 3.12). Yet Kirk’s drawings are third- or fourth-generation copies, as he had copied Tischbein’s drawings, some of which were based on the drawings of Neapolitan engravers, few of whom were lucky enough to have had a brief encounter with an original Greek vase. Such drawings and replications in pottery took their early nineteenth-century British consumers far from the actual Greek vase. Would these viewers in turn be disappointed if confronted with the breadth of shapes, decorative styles, and figural images represented by Hamilton’s actual vase collection? Perhaps, if their first point of contact with a Greek vase had been its flattened two-dimensional image on a nineteenth-century plate. Or perhaps not, if they had first encountered Greek vases through Hamilton’s AEGR, which had given Flaxman multiple ways of viewing a single Nolan amphora. After copying these views into his notebook (Figure 3.9) and contemplating the possibilities, he replicated its light-on-dark scene on a ‘black basalt’ lebes gamikos and adapted it to a dark-on-light ‘encaustic’ painting on one of Wedgwood’s caneware products.78 At least Flaxman, for one, fulfilled Winckelmann’s wish, to capture the spirit of the ancients without slavish copying, but mediated through his own distinctive style.79

BI BL IOGR A PH Y A lten , F. von (ed.). 1872. Aus Tischbeins Leben und Briefwechsel (Leipzig: E. A. Seemann). B ailey , D.  M. 1992. ‘Small Objects in the dal Pozzo–Albani Drawings: Early Gatherings’, in I. Jenkins and J. Montagu (eds), Cassiano dal Pozzo’s Paper Museum (Milan: Olivetti), 3–30.

76   For the influence of Winckelmann and later scholars in elevating the humble vase to high art see also Petsalis-Diomidis 2020: 10. 77   Caylus 1952–67: 1.114–15. 78 79   Black basalt lebes gamikos: London, British Museum 2011,5015.1.   Ramage 1989: fig. 5.

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B rylowe , T. 2008. ‘Two Kinds of Collections: Sir William Hamilton’s Vases, Real and Represented’, Eighteenth-Century Life 32: 23–56. B urn , L. 2003. ‘Words and Pictures: Greek Vases and Their Classification’, in K. Sloan and A. Burnett (eds), Enlightenment. Discovering the World in the Eighteenth Century (London: BM Press), 140–9. B usch , W. 2001. ‘Die Neudefinition der Umrißzeichnung in Rom am Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts’, in M.  Stuffmann and W.  Busch (eds), Zeichnen in Rom 1790–1830 (Cologne: Walther König), 11–44. C aylus , A.  C. P., C omte   de . 1752–67. Recueil d’antiquités égyptiennes, etrusques, grecques et romaines (Paris: Duchesne). C hamay , J. 1999. ‘Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc (1580–1637): Der größte Raritätensammler seiner Zeit’, in M. Flashar (ed.), Europa à la Grecque: Vasen machen Mode (Munich: Biering and Brinkmann), 11–17. C onstantine , D. 1993. ‘Winckelmann and Sir William Hamilton’, Oxford German Studies 22: 55–80. C onstantine , D. 2001. Fields of Fire (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson). C umberland , G. 1796. Thoughts on Outline, Sculpture, and the System that Guided the Ancient Artist in Composing Their Figures and Groups (London: W. Wilson). D’H ancarville , P.-F. 1766–7 (1767–76). Collection of Etruscan, Greek and Roman Antiquities from the Cabinet of the Honourable William Hamilton (Naples: Morelli). D yer , W. 1916. ‘Creators of English Styles: VIII. Josiah Wedgwood’, Arts & Decoration 6: 541–66. F arrar , K.  E. (ed.). 1903. Letters of Josiah Wedgwood 1762 to 1770, repr. 1982 (Manchester: E. J. Morten Ltd). F errari , S. and N.  J.  C avadini (eds). 2017. J.  J.  Winckelmann (1717–1768): Monumenti antichi inediti: Storia di un’opera illustrata (Milan: Skira). F iner , A. and G. S avage (eds). 1965. The Selected Letters of Josiah Wedgwood (London: Cory, Adams and Mackay). H all , E. 2020. ‘How Much Did Pottery Workers Know about Classical Art and Civilisation?’, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 63.1: 17–33. H all , E., and H. S tead . 2020. A People’s History of Classics: Class and Greco-Roman Antiquity in Britain and Ireland 1689–1939 (London: Routledge). H amilton , W. 1791–5. Collection of Engravings from Ancient Vases Mostly of Pure Greek Workmanship Discovered in Sepulchres in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (Naples: Royal Academy of Painting). H arloe , K. 2017. ‘Kritische Zeitgenossen: Lessing, Heyne, Herder’, in M. Disselkamp and F.  Testa (eds), Winckelmann-Handbuch: Leben–Werk–Wirkung (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler), 258–67. H arloe , K. 2020. ‘Classics Transformed? Ancient Figured Vases as a Test-Case for the Preoccupations of Classical Reception Studies’, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 63.1: 138–42. H askell , F. 1984. ‘D’Hancarville: An Adventurer and Art-Historian in EighteenthCentury Europe’, in E. Chaney and N. Ritchie (eds), Oxford, China and Italy: Writings in Honour of Sir Harold Acton (London: Thames and Hudson), 177–91.

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M icheli , M. E. 2017. ‘Lanze e Winckelmann: Una nota’, in B. Arbeid, S. Bruni, and M.  Iozzo (eds), Winckelmann, Firenze e gli Etruschi: Il padre dell’archeologia in Toscana: Catalogo della mostra Firenze, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, 26 maggio 2016–30 gennaio (Pisa: Edizioni ETS), 261–72. M ontfaucon , B. de . 1719. L’Antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures, Vol. 2 (Paris). https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/f/g40bsg/oxfaleph012403534. M orrison , A. 1893. The Collection of Autograph Letters and Historical Documents Formed by Alfred Morrison: The Hamilton and Nelson Papers, 2 Vols (London: Strangeways). N oble , J. V. 1988. The Techniques of Painted Attic Pottery, rev. ed. (London: Thames and Hudson). P asseri , G.  B. 1767–75. Picturae Etruscorum in Vasculis nunc primum in unum collectae (Rome: J. Zempel). P etsalis -D iomidis , A. 2020. ‘Introduction’, in A. Petsalis-Diomidis with E. Hall (eds), The Classical Vase Transformed. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 63.1: 34–53. P otts , A. 1980. ‘Greek Sculpture and Roman Copies I: Anton Raphael Mengs and the Eighteenth Century’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 43: 150–73. R amage , N. H. 1989. ‘Owed to a Grecian Urn: The Debt of Flaxman and Wedgwood to Hamilton’, Ars Ceramica 6: 8–12. R amage , N.  H. 1990. ‘Wedgwood and Sir William Hamilton: Their Personal and Artistic Relationship’, Proceedings of the Thirty-Fifth Wedgwood International Seminar, Birmingham, AL, 71–90. http://issuu.com/josiahw/docs/1968-3/3?e=0. R ehm , W. and H. D iepolder (eds). 1952–7. Winckelmanns Briefe, 4 Vols (Berlin: De Gruyter). R eilly , R. 1992. Josiah Wedgwood (London: Macmillan). R ichards , S. 1999. Eighteenth-Century Ceramics: Products for a Civilised Society (Manchester: Manchester University Press). R oettgen , S. 1999–2003. Anton Raphael Mengs, 1728–1779, 2 Vols (Munich: Hirmer). R oettgen , S. 2013. ‘German Painters in Naples and Their Contribution to the Revival of Antiquity, 1760–1799’, in C. C. Mattusch (ed.), Rediscovering the Ancient World on the Bay of Naples, 1710–1890. Studies in the History of Art 79. CASVA Symposium Papers 66: 123–40. R osenblum , R. 1976. The International Style about 1800: A Study in Linear Abstraction (New York: Garland). S chmidt , S. 2005. ‘Die Ausdruckskraft der Linie: Tischbein, Flaxman und die Asthetik der Umrißradierung’, in M.  Petras (ed.), Hancarville und die Hamiltonsche Vasensammlung (Stendal: Winckelmann Stiftung), 31–40. S mallwood , V., and S.  W oodford . 2003. Fragments from Sir William Hamilton’s Second Collection of Vases Recovered from the Wreck of HMS Colossus. CVA Great Britain 10 (London: British Museum Press). S mith , A.  C. 2017. ‘Winckelmann, Greek Masterpieces, and Architectural Sculpture: Prolegomena to a History of Classical Archaeology in Museums’, in A. Lichtenberger and R.  Raja (eds), The Diversity of Classical Archaeology. Studies in Classical Archaeology, Vol. 1 (Turnhout: Brehols), 23–46.

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S mith , A.  C. 2018. ‘Greek Vases in Naples: Ottocento Laboratory of Curiosity’, in K.  Harloe, C.  Neagu, and A.  C.  Smith (eds), Winckelmann and Curiosity in the 18th-Century Gentleman’s Study (Oxford: Christ Church), 9–38. S tafford , B.  M. 1980. ‘Beauty of the Invisible: Winckelmann and the Aesthetics of Imperceptibility’, in Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 43: 65–78. S tammler , W. 1962. ‘ “Edle Einfalt” zur Geschichte eines Kunsttheoretischen Topos’, in W.  Stammler (ed.), Wort und Bild. Studien zu den Wechselbeziehungen zwischen Schrifttum und Bildkunst im Mittelalter (Berlin: E. Schmidt), 161–92. S tarobinski , J. 1973. 1789: Les emblems de la raison (Paris: Flammarion). T ordella , P.  G. 2017. ‘Winckelmann und die Kultur der Umrisszeichnung im Neoklassizismus’, in M.  Disselkamp and F.  Testa (eds), Winckelmann-Handbuch: Leben—Werk—Wirkung (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler), 319–29. T urner , N. J. L. 1993. ‘Some of the Copyists after the Antique Employed by Cassiano’, The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo. Quaderni Puteani 4 (Milan: Olivetti), 27–37. V aiani , E. 2016. The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo: A Catalogue Raisonée, Series A: Antiquities and Architecture, Part 5: The Antichità Diverse Album (London: Harvey Miller Publishers). V ermeule , C. C. 1960. ‘The Dal Pozzo-Albani Drawings of Classical Antiquities in the British Museum’, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 50: 5–78. V ickers , M. 1985–6. ‘Imaginary Etruscans: Changing Perceptions of Etruria since the Fifteenth Century’, Hephaistos 7–8: 153–68. V ickers , M. 1987. ‘Value and Simplicity: Eighteenth-Century Taste and the Study of Greek Vases’, Past and Present 116: 98–137. W atkins , J. and D. B indman . 2013. John Flaxman: Line to Contour (Birmingham: Ikon). W eissert , C. 2005. ‘Kunsttheorie versus Wissenschaft: D’Hancarvilles Kritik an den bemalten antiken Vasen’, Hancarville und die Hamiltonsche Vasensammlung. Viertes Heft des Arbeitskreises für Theorie und Geschichte der Kunstgeschichtsschreibung 4: 7–20. W ickham , A. 2010. The Language of Line: John Flaxman’s Illustrations to the Works of Homer and Aeschylus (London: Royal Academy of Arts). W iebenson , D. 1964. ‘Subjects from Homer’s Iliad in Neoclassical Art’, The Art Bulletin 1: 23–47. W illiams , S.  B. 1949. Antique Blue and White Spode, 3rd ed., repr. 1987 (London: Batsford). W inckelmann , J. J. 1765. Reflections on the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks: With Instructions for the Connoisseur, and an Essay on Grace in Works of Art, transl. H. Fusseli (London: A. Millar). W inckelmann , J.  J. 1767. Monumenti antichi inediti spiegati ed illustrati (Rome: a spese dell’autore). W inckelmann , J.  J. 1849. The History of Ancient Art among the Greeks, transl. G. H. Lodge (Boston, MA: Monroe).

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W inckelmann , J.  J. 1885. Gedanken über die Nachahmung der griechischen Werke in der Malerei und Bildhauerkunst: Erste ausgabe 1755 mit Oesers Vignetten (Stuttgart: Göschen). W inckelmann , J. J. 1965. Sämtliche Werke, ed. J. Eiselein, 12 Vols (Donaueschingen) 1825–9 (Osnabrück: Zeller). W inckelmann , J.  J.  2006. History of the Art of Antiquity, trans. H.  F.  Mallgrave (Los Angeles, CA: Getty Publications). Witte, J. de. 1865. Études sur les vases peints (Paris: Gazette des Beaux-Arts).

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4

The Graphic Medium and Artistic Style Thomas Hope (1769–1831) and Two-­Dimensional Encounters with Greek Vases Alexia Petsalis-­Diomidis

I N T RODUCT ION

Thomas Hope’s engagement with Greek vases in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century was extensive, creative, and influential across a range of media. He amassed a large collection of vases, curated their display in innovative ways, and used them as sources, both in his avant-­garde furniture design and also in two-­dimensional images drawn by himself and commissioned from other artists. This chapter focuses on the latter graphic engagements. It categorizes them according to style, dealing first with paintings in the picturesque style, and second with engravings in published books in the neoclassical outline style. The analysis aims to show the different effects of presenting Greek vases in these two artistic styles; and to explore the way that the publications, though finished products in their own right, were also intended to serve as models for further use by painters in new compositions, and by furniture and fashion designers. In particular, then, the chapter investigates how these graphic encounters with Greek vases actively mediated between original artefacts and further two- or three-­dimensional artwork. In so doing a case is made for the crucial role played by graphic images in creative receptions of Greek vases at a time when boundaries between scholarship, archaeology, and contemporary design were fluid.1

1   Coltman 2006: 195 ‘neoclassicism during the period from 1760–1800 has been understood as a fluid and pervasive style of thought’.

Alexia Petsalis-­Diomidis, The Graphic Medium and Artistic Style: Thomas Hope (1769–1831) and Two-­Dimensional Encounters with Greek Vases In: Drawing the Greek Vase. Edited by: Caspar Meyer and Alexia Petsalis-­Diomidis, Oxford University Press. © Caspar Meyer and Alexia Petsalis-­Diomidis 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192856128.003.0004

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Thomas Hope, born into a banking family of Dutch and Scottish origin, spent his childhood in Amsterdam. Aged eighteen he went on an extensive eight-­year Grand Tour in the eastern Mediterranean (1787–95). His family’s move to England in 1795 was prompted by the threat of Napoleon invading the Netherlands.2 Hope’s lifelong interest in the arts manifested itself in various forms: he was a skilled draughtsman and furniture designer, an art collector, a commissioner of new paintings and sculpture,3 the author of a number of works of different genres including the novel Anastasius (1819) and non-­fiction works on architecture and interior decoration,4 and a member of several societies and committees related to the arts. His inherited wealth was certainly important in giving him freedom, influence, and connections; yet to the British establishment he remained an outsider, as he was a foreigner and not an aristocrat. One aspect of his involvement with the arts, and with classical material culture in particular, can plausibly be interpreted in the light of his desire for social recognition and acceptance. Even if this was part of his motivation it did not entail superficiality of engagement with the arts, which was deep and long lasting.5 In addition to a collection of classical sculpture,6 Hope owned approximately 1,500 ancient Greek vases according to Aubin-­Louis Millin in 1806.7 He may have acquired some of these during his Grand Tour but direct evidence of such purchases in Italy and Greece is lacking.8 Hope is certainly known to have bought vases at auction sales of important collections in London.9 His most significant purchase (for 4,500 guineas) was the remains of William Hamilton’s second vase collection after its shipwreck in 1801.10 The acquisition of these vases carried with it a prestige associated with their previous owner, whose first collection had been purchased by the British Museum in 1772. Hope actively enlarged and reshaped his collection of vases: for example, in 1805 he sold 180 pieces from these ‘Hamilton’ vases.11

3   Watkin 1968: 5.   Bindman 2008; Chapel 2008a; Chapel 2008b.   Hope 1819; on Anastasius see Kostova 2007; and Nolan 2008. 5   On Hope’s attempts to obtain a peerage see Watkin 1968: 25–6. On the use of classical material culture for social advancement in the case of the Roman Catholics Henry Blundell and Charles Townley see Coltman 2006: 189. 6 7   Waywell 1986.   Millin 1802–6, Vol. 2: 15; Tillyard 1923; Watkin 1968: 36; Jenkins 2008. 8   Watkin 1968: 49 for a brief discussion of whether he brought back antiquities from his travels. He seems to have brought back a marble arm which he believed to be from a Lapith from the Parthenon; on its display see Watkin 1968: 113. On purchases of antique sculptures from dealers in Rome see Cola 2019. 9  Hope purchased vases from the following sales: Cawdor, Chinnery, Edwards, Coghill, Durand, Magnoncourt, Beugnot. See Archäologische Zeitung, Jahrg. 32, 1875: 16. 10   Watkin 1968: 35–6; Millin 1802–6, Vol. 2: 15, n.1. 11   Archäologische Zeitung, Jahrg. 32, 1875: 16. 2 4

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Hope’s approach to drawing was characterized by a belief in its moral im­port­ance for the nation as a whole, and by an awareness of practitioners making a living out of their craft.12 He argued that classical drawing should be taught to young men at ‘all our public seminaries of youth’ because it was as important ‘to every order of the community’ as ‘scanning Greek verse’.13 His conviction about the importance of classical drawing for contemporary England can be understood as a conviction about the importance of vase paintings in particular as models for painters. This transpires from the fact that the main extant examples of classical Greek drawing were painted on ceramics, and from Hope’s close association of drawing with the subject of the naked human body, in which Greek vase painting abounds.14 Thus for Hope vase painting, standing in for classical drawing, had a central role to play as a model in contemporary English art and culture. In his own drawings for publications and in book commissions, Hope opted for the neoclassical outline style.15 Cohen has convincingly argued that at the time this style was closely associated with the concept of utility, not least through its use in scientific illustrations.16 This interpretation accords perfectly with the generative purpose of Hope’s publications (discussed below) in the production of a higher standard of furniture and fashion. In addition to the association of the outline style with utility, I suggest that for Hope it is likely to have been connected to his Greek vases: it had been used for Hamilton’s second vase collection (and subsequently Hope’s), published under the direction of Wilhelm Tischbein (1751–1829), director of the Royal Academy of Painting at Naples.17 These engravings were amongst the earliest in Europe to use this outline technique, and the first to use it for the depiction of Greek vases. The linear nature of red-­figure vase decoration in particular made the use of this style especially apt for their reproduction. Hope wrote that the absence of shading kept the cost of publication low (at 5 guineas) while the difficulty of achieving good engravings through outline alone was heightened, thereby creating a challenge to the artist.18 The neoclassical outline style pi­on­eered by Tischbein for the depiction of what became Hope’s own Greek vases likely created a strong association between this style and these artefacts, to the extent that Hope’s application of it to other subjects figured them as Greek vase paintings.

13   Hope 1807a.   Hope 1807a: 7.   Hope 1807a: 6 (model), 3, and 1812, Vol. 1: v (‘the external anatomy of the human frame’; ‘the naked figure’). 15   Commissions: Flaxman 1807 and Moses 1812. See Watkin and Hewat-­Jaboor 2008: 490. 16 17   Cohen 2013.   Hamilton 1791–5 [1793–1803]. 18   Hope 1812, Vol. 1: xv, ‘The only thing, consistent with the improvement of the work, that depended on me, I have endeavoured to do—­namely, to make it as cheap as possible.’ 12 14

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VA SE S A S A RCH A EOL OGIC A L A RT EFACTS I N COL OU R F U L PICT U R E SQU E: E VOC AT ION OF T H E PA ST A N D SEL F-­F A SH ION I NG I N T H E PR E SEN T

This section examines three paintings which depict Greek vases: the only known painting by Hope on this subject, and two other paintings commissioned or owned by him on display in his house in Duchess Street in London.

Thomas Hope, ‘Athens, A view of the Lysikrates Monument’, c.1787–95 During his Grand Tour Hope made a large number of drawings depicting the natural and built landscape, architectural fragments, and local inhabitants in their varied costumes. Five hundred and twenty-­five drawings in ink pen or watercolour survive in the Benaki Museum in Athens, and it is likely that these were intended for publication.19 Only one of these works includes the depiction of ancient vases (Figure 4.1).20 It is a watercolour on paper showing part of the choragic monument of Lysikrates in Athens which, at the time, was built into the French Capuchin monastery where many northern European travellers stayed. In the bottom right is a marble funerary stele depicting two standing women; the small size of the stele and its iconography (a woman in the pudicitia pose) suggests a relief of the Hellenistic period. Three ceramic vessels are carefully positioned: what appears to be a Geometric krater on an elongated foot to the left, and to the right, by the side and above the funerary stele, are two lekythoi, funerary Attic vessels which date to the classical period. While the depiction of arch­aeo­ logic­al sculptural and architectural fragments is typical of the period, the insertion of these vases is unusual in the works of northern European travellers. Ancient vases rarely appear in literary and visual discourses in relation to Ottoman Greece, despite the fact that they must have been visible in houses across the social spectrum.21 The positioning of ancient vases in close, indeed contiguous, proximity to a funerary stele creates a mise en scène of archaeological discovery, not least because almost all Greek vases were found in tombs. However, the composition is fantastical as a consequence of the interior setting, and also because of the discrepancy in the dates of the artefacts and their intact condition: ceramics from burials in Greece were almost always found in a fragmentary state because the tombs tended not to be cut in rock and therefore in time often collapsed onto their contents. Most vessels found in burial contexts needed reconstruction. Pencil traces around the lekythoi showing alternative angles suggest that much effort and thought was put into achieving optimal positioning and context for these objects. The painted decoration of the vases is roughly indicated   Watkin and Hewat-­Jaboor 2008: 280–2; Tsigakou 1985. 21   Tsigakou 1985: 207, no. 98.   Petsalis-­Diomidis 2019.

19

20

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F igure 4.1.  Thomas Hope, ‘Athens, A view of the Lysikrates Monument’, c.1787–95. Watercolour on paper 22 × 16 cm. Inv. No. 27241. (cf. Inv. No. 27240) © 2021, Benaki Museum, Athens.

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but there is no attempt to show iconography in detail, nor to prioritize the pictorial aspect of the vessels. The vases, then, are figured as archaeological artefacts. The murky atmosphere and indication of a source of artificial light emanating from centre left, creating deep shadows, help to create a picturesque effect, enhanced by an impressionistic style.

Joseph Michael Gandy, A Greek Tomb, before 1818 The watercolour, either to be identified with ‘A Cenotaph’ and exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1804, or with ‘View of a Tomb of a Greek Warrior, thought to be “The Tomb of Agamemnon” ’, was certainly displayed in Hope’s house in Duchess Street until at least 1820, together with the same artist’s ‘The Fall of Babylon, or Pandemonium, or Part of the High Capital of Satan and his Peers’, based on Milton’s Paradise Lost (Figure  4.2).22 It should be contextualized

F igure 4.2.  Joseph Michael Gandy, watercolour on paper of a Greek tomb, c.1804. To be identified either as ‘A Cenotaph’ or as ‘View of a Tomb of a Greek Warrior, thought to be “The Tomb of Agamemnon” ’. 75 × 130 cm. Private collection. Image courtesy of the Bard Graduate Center, photographer: Miki Slingsby. 22   Lukacher 2006: 34–5, fig. 29. ‘Catalogue of Works of English Artists in the Collection of Thomas Hope’, Annals of the Fine Arts, 4 (1819): 97. Contra J. Harris, see Watkin and Hewat-­Jaboor 2008: 364, and n. 1. On ‘Pandemonium’ see Lukacher 2006: 115; and Watkin and Hewat-­Jaboor 2008: catalogue no. 62, 159, fig. 9. 11. On Gandy’s dedication to Hope of volume 1 of his Designs for Cottages, Cottage Farms and Other Rural Buildings, and the Rural Architect (1805) see Lukacher 2006: 51.

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amongst Gandy’s designs for tombs, ancient and modern, and alongside his picturesque evocations of antiquity, many of which referred to passages by Pausanias.23 The inclusion of Greek vases also links it to drawings of vases in the archive of Sir John Soane (1753–1837), some of which may have been executed by Gandy himself, as he was employed as a draughtsman in Soane’s office from 1798. This is a fantasy of a tomb; the depiction of a galley on the marble sarcophagus, the anchor hanging above the altar on the left, and the assorted weapons and trophies of armour suggest that it belongs to a warrior who died at sea. Six red-­figure vessels are unobtrusively displayed at various points: a bell krater and rhyton on the architrave above and to the right of the sarcophagus, and four vessels, which appear to be amphorae, are hung by orange ribbons on the walls above the two altars on the two side walls. The vessels are not immediately visible due to their small size and positioning high up in the gloom. They are part of a group of funerary offerings and ritual objects evoking a rich array of textures (animal fur, textiles, metal, incised ceramic), smells (incense, flowers), visual stimuli (lamps with double lighted wicks), and even taste (the wine once held in the vessels). In contrast to Hope’s own watercolour depicting vases as arch­aeo­ logic­al artefacts in present-­day Ottoman Athens, this work offers a fantasy of Greek vases in their antique funerary ritual use. Yet the effect of the display of vessels on the architrave and in close proximity to the mythological ceiling fresco is strikingly similar to the arrangement of vessels on top of bookcases near frescoed ceilings in contemporary British houses, such as that of Sir John Soane in Lincoln’s Inn Fields or Bowood House in Wiltshire.24 The fantasy of the antique is thus perhaps influenced by contemporary British interiors. The frame of the watercolour is thought to have been designed by Hope himself, and draws heavily on vase iconography and colour schemes. A sprig of leaves and berries in gilt runs around the black wooden frame, punctuated by two rosettes above and below in the centre. This design is inspired by the depiction of wreaths on the rims of red-­figure kraters. Directly abutting the painting itself is another gilt border, the design based on non-­figural borders on vase paintings such as ‘egg and dart’. The choice of frame, then, was related to the small Greek vases depicted within, and personalized the watercolour for Hope. The contrast between the three-­dimensional frame, creatively evoking Greek vases through motif and colour contrast, and the two-­dimensional flat depiction of the six   Lukacher 2006: 32–7 on Gandy’s depiction of tombs; and specifically on the precedent of Gandy’s ‘Sepulchral Chamber’, 1800, and influence of Louis-­Jean Desprez, ‘The Tomb of Agamemnon’, 1787, on the watercolour under discussion here. Lukacher 2006: 90–110 on Gandy’s images of antiquity. Elsner 2001: 256–60 on his use of Pausanias. 24   Coltman 2012. Ceiling decoration by Henry Howard in the library and dining-­room of Sir John Soane’s house at 12–­14 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, commissioned in 1834; see Anon. 1955: 11–12; and Thornton and Dorey 1992: 12–24. 23

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whole vessels within, is playful. The effect of the whole, in its combination of neoclassical design in the perfect new frame and the picturesque evocation of a crumbling, funereal, and yet sensuous past, is striking and highly modern.

Sir Martin Archer Shee, Portrait of Louisa Hope, c.1807 The oil portrait painting of Louisa Hope (1791–1851), Thomas Hope’s wife, was a private commission; yet its display at the Royal Academy in 1808 suggests that it was conceived as an image for public consumption (Figure 4.3).25 This was one of a number of portraits of Louisa Hope in paint and sculpture.26 While there is evidence for Thomas Hope’s involvement in these commissions, it is Louisa Hope who is listed in Archer Shee’s professional memoranda as engaging him to paint her portrait, and she may well have had a voice in her self-­fashioning through pose and dress.27 Louisa Hope herself was very prominent as a hostess at Duchess Street and at the Deepdene, the Hope country estate in Surrey.28 Louisa Hope stands in the foreground on a terrace with a natural landscape in the background, the sky variegated with clouds and some lingering reflected sunlight. Just beyond the balustrade the trunk of a tree rises on the left, and more trunks can be seen nearby indicating a forest. On the right, on the balustrade itself, is a large marble vase with elaborate double handles, and decorated in relief with a bacchanalian scene of two dancing figures. This is an identifiable antiquity, once in the collection of Lord Temple at Stowe, and depicted by Piranesi; it therefore had both a collecting and a graphic pedigree.29 Both the vase and the tree trunk are lightly draped in a creeper with orange leaves; this is reminiscent of the wreaths crowning red-­figure kraters, both through its placement near a (stone) krater and through the contrast of the orange and gold leaves with the dark bark of the tree, close in effect to Greek red and black pottery. On the terrace itself, on the left, stands a tall round marble pedestal carved in relief and depicting a winged creature (possibly a griffin) and non-­figural   Watkin and Hewat-­Jaboor 2008: catalogue no. 3; Watkin 1968: 42; Archer Shee 1860, Vol. 1: 319–20.   These include an oil painting by George Dawe (1781–1829) and Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830), an oil painting, drawing, and miniature enamel by Henry Bone (1755–1834), and a marble bust by Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770–1844). See Watkin and Hewat-­Jaboor 2008: 61 fig. 4.6; 87 fig. 5. 19; 82 fig. 5.8; 86 fig. 5.18; 272–3 catalogue no.7; and 276–7 catalogue no. 11. 27   See Watkin and Hewat-­Jaboor 2008: 276–7, on family busts commissioned from Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770–1844); unpublished letter from Hope to an unnamed recipient artist on the subject of a bust of Mrs Hope (speaking for her and explaining that she was too busy to sit at the present time), National Art Library Special Collections MSL/1979/2610. Archer Shee 1860, Vol. 1: 319. 28  Louisa was the daughter of the Archbishop of Tuam, Ireland; she and Thomas were married in 1806. On their social activities see Watkin 1968: 16–17. 29   This vase is depicted by Giovanni Battista Piranesi atop a marble ash chest. The caption identifies it as excavated by George Grenville and then acquired by Lord Temple and displayed at Stowe. Piranesi and Ficacci 2000: 609, no. 771. 25 26

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F igure 4.3.  Sir Martin Archer Shee, portrait of Louisa Hope (1791–1851), c.1807. Oil on canvas. 234 × 132 cm. Reproduced by kind permission of The Hon. Mrs Everard de Lisle.

dec­or­ation, on which stands the statue of a man looking to the right. His booted feet, suggestive of Roman sculpture, are illuminated by a shaft of sunlight; more faintly visible are his torso and his right hand, holding a jug. A red drape and tasselled tie are visible behind the statue, creating a barrier between the human and natural world, and making a tonal link with Louisa Hope’s clothing. By the base of the pedestal, and largely in its shadow, are two ancient Greek ceramic vessels: a black glazed kylix with non-­figural tondo decoration, and a large red-­figure volute krater decorated with a series of three single figures. In the centre a male figure holding a spear stands in contrapposto stance, looking to the right, towards a seated figure, heavily draped and also holding a spear, and beyond, of course, towards Louisa Hope herself. On his other side is a standing female figure in drapery, facing left. The shiny effect of the black gloss catching the light frames the central male figure, above and below, making him a mini­ ature counterpoint to the main subject of the painting. These figures, painted on the ceramic surface, and the bacchanalian figures carved in relief on the stone

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vase, present the viewer with the antique models for the body fashioning of Louisa Hope. The picturesque landscape together with the Greek and Roman antiquities offer a mise en scène for Louisa Hope. She is dressed à la grecque. This fashion style is closely linked to antique white sculptures and understood as casting women as living statues;30 the interpretation put forward here in addition links the fashion and pose to the aesthetics of the Greek vase. Louisa Hope’s white peplum, showing almost grey in its folds, links her to the marble antiquities, while the red, orange, and gold colours of her dress and shoes connect her to the human figures on the surface of the red-­figure krater. More specifically the palmette and acanthus frieze on the hem of her dress, the border on her sleeves and décolletage, and the linear and dotted border of the peplum are directly inspired by non-­figural decoration of red-­figure vases. In this way Louisa Hope’s white body adopts the role of the vessel with its elegant outline, while her clothing corresponds to the surface decoration of the vase. Louisa Hope becomes a living embodiment of the vessel, and simultaneously she is fashioned as a Greek woman from the iconography of Greek vases, animated and brought to life. There is a playful suggestion that the barrier could be breached and, like the maenads on the stone vase behind her, she could enter the wooded mountainous landscape beyond. Her overall style of clothing and hairstyle are in the Regency fashion, inspired by images on Greek vases, while the tassels on her dress correspond to the iconography of textiles on such vases. Although her frontal attitude is not typical of Greek vase iconography, her posture has elements that recall female figures on red-­figure pottery: her contrapposto stance, the holding of a flower to her chest, lightly holding her peplum, the peplum itself swirling in the breeze.31 She thus concurrently combines the roles of vessel and animated iconography in a fantastical two-­dimensional inversion. The use of Greek vases in this painting, both as picturesque props on the ground and in the animated translation on the body of Louisa Hope, can be contrasted with the depiction of a red-­figure lekythos in the 1802 family portrait by Benjamin West, commissioned by Thomas Hope’s cousin Henry Hope (1735–1811) (Figure 4.4).32 The single red-­figure lekythos is carefully displayed on a tall wooden pedestal next to a model of Welgelegen, the Hope family house in Amsterdam. Here the Greek vase is a perfect fetishized collectible paralleled by the other artworks in the room. Archer Shee’s portrait, by contrast, offers a reading of Greek vases as multivalent objects: as prized collectibles on the one hand, and on the other, as mood setters evoking a picturesque world of nature and antiquity, and as the source for contemporary fashion, self-­fashioning, and embodiment. 30 32

31   Rauser 2020.   Compare the central figure in 1812, Vol. 2, pl. 132.   Watkin and Hewat-­Jaboor 2008: 6, fig. 1.2.

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F igure 4.4.  Benjamin West, ‘The Hope Family of Sydenham, Kent’, 1802. Oil on canvas. 183.2 × 258.44 cm. MFA 06.2362. Abbott Lawrence Fund.

PU BL ISH ED ENGR AV I NG S I N N EOCL A S SIC A L OU T L I N E: BOOK A N D MODEL

This section examines the use of vase-­related imagery in three publications: the first and second written and illustrated by Hope himself, Household Furniture and Interior Decoration (1807) and Costume of the Ancients (1809 and 1812), and the third commissioned by him, Designs of Modern Costume (1812). The discussion identifies the elements of Greek vases which are deployed, analyses the effect of the neoclassical outline style in the depiction of black- and red-­figure three-­dimensional ceramics, and explores the way that these images gesture to future vase-­related creations in other media, particularly painting, furniture, and textiles.

Thomas Hope, Household Furniture and Interior Decoration (London, 1807) Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, published as a folio volume in 1807, served both as a guide to Hope’s house in Duchess Street, designed by Robert Adam (1728–92), and as a catalogue of his designs for furniture and

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decorative objects.33 It was intended to influence public taste and urged a return to the imitation of nature and the classical style. The furniture depicted abounds with elements inspired by vase paintings, both non-­figural motifs (e.g. palmettes, tendrils) and objects drawn from the iconography of vases (e.g. lyres, klismoi chairs). Whole Greek vases or imitation Greek vases feature in the catalogue of objects, sometimes in proximity to Roman stone urns and Renaissance or modern vessels, for instance in alabaster.34 Greek vases also feature in plates of three rooms in which part of Hope’s enormous vase collection was displayed.35 Hope therefore simultaneously presents vases as decorative forms and objects more akin to other modern vessels, and as classical archaeological objects in a museological display (Figures 4.5, 4.6, and 4.7). In the Greek vase room plates, vases are depicted in outline with all traces of painted decoration removed, thus banishing considerations of iconography, decorative motif, and colour. The effect is to emphasize the three-­dimensional, almost sculptural, nature of the vases. They are arranged according to shape, at points creating a pattern through alternating outlines, always with a view to symmetry and visual impact. The plethora of vases, carefully arranged and stripped of their iconography, encourages readers and viewers to see an entire collection, rather than individual objects and works of art. The accompanying text and some details of display offer insights into Hope’s interpretation of the vases. Three themes are emphasized: first, an association with South Italian archaeology, including the Pompeian context, through the nearby display of Pompeian bronzes;36 second, a specifically funerary origin, through the use of recesses for display, reminiscent of columbaria and vaulted ceilings alluding to South Italian rock-­cut tombs;37 and third, an association of the vases with a Dionysiac mystery cult through the use of Dionysiac decorative motifs in the rooms.38 Hope was not the first neoclassicist to be interested primarily in the shapes rather than the decoration of Greek vases—­John Soane notably adopted this approach.39 But his decision to depict them stripped of their painted decoration stands out, as Greek vases were still generally approached as surfaces for painting 33   The house in Duchess Street was designed by Robert Adam, purchased in 1799, and renovated by 1804. See Watkin 1968: 93–124; on museological display at Duchess Street see Lukacher 2006: 35. 34   Greek vase e.g. pl. XII no. 6 and no. 7 ‘End and front of a table’; modern vases e.g. pl. XIII no. 3 two vessels with volute handles decorated with a head in centre, either side of the Isis clock from the Sculpture Gallery. 35   Hope 1807b: pls III, IV, and V. 36   Hope 1807b: 28, the Pompeian bronzes were ‘of a quiet hue and of a sepulchral cast’; pl. V (fig. 7). 37   Hope 1807b: 24: ‘As these vases were all found in tombs’; pls III and V (figs 5 and 7) for cabinets in the form of columbaria; pls IV and V (figs 6 and 7) for rooms with vaulted ceilings. 38   Hope 1807b: 24: ‘partly connected with the representations of mystic death and regeneration’; pls III and IV (figs 5 and 6) (terms with heads of Bacchus, thyrsi, masks, ivy wreaths, panther’s muzzle and claw). 39   Dorey 1992: 123.

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F igure 4.5.  Thomas Hope, Household Furniture and Interior Decoration (London, 1807), pl. III. ‘Room containing Greek fictile vases’. Drawing by Thomas Hope, engraved by Edmund Aikin and George Dawe. Art & Architecture Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

F igure 4.6.  Thomas Hope, Household Furniture and Interior Decoration (London, 1807), pl. IV. ‘Second room containing Greek vases’. Drawing by Thomas Hope, engraved by Edmund Aikin and George Dawe. Art & Architecture Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

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F igure 4.7.  Thomas Hope, Household Furniture and Interior Decoration (London, 1807), pl. V. ‘Third room containing Greek vases’. Drawing by Thomas Hope, engraved by Edmund Aikin and George Dawe. Art & Architecture Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

and inscriptions rather than as three-­dimensional functional ceramic vessels. An important factor in this decision may have been the difficulties of rendering small-­scale figures in perspective on the rounded surfaces. Yet the sketchy rendition of paintings and wall figures in other plates argues against this as a determining factor.40 The answer may lie, instead, in Hope’s prolific use of vase painting motifs in the interiors of these rooms. This includes non-­figural vase motifs on furniture (e.g. tendrils and palmettes on table legs in Plate IV (Figure 4.6), on the couch in Plate V (Figure 4.7)), iconographical elements rendered in three-­ dimensions (e.g. klismoi chairs in Plate IV (Figure 4.6) and Plate V (Figure 4.7)), and plastic features of vases (e.g. the swan from the handles of a volute krater enlarged and transformed into a bookend in Plate V (Figure 4.7)).41 These vase motifs, playfully enlarged in scale and reconfigured around the room in a phantasmagorical array, are in dialogue with the outlined plain whole vessels, at least in the eyes of a connoisseur. The restrained neoclassical style of the plates figured Greek vases as highly modern items, and accustomed readers and viewers to the idea of tearing away decoration from the materiality of vessels. So in Household   Hope 1807b: pls VI and VIII (paintings); pls VII and VIII (wall figures).   Compare the use of the swan motif in a stool designed by Hope. Hope 1807b: pl. XL nos. 2 and 3; Watkin and Hewat-­Jaboor 2008: catalogue no. 93. 40 41

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Furniture and Interior Decoration elements of Greek vase iconography are offered as models for the creation of modern furniture and decoration, while the collection of vessels as a whole, artfully arranged, is offered as a model of in­nova­ tive display. Conversely, visitors in the house itself would have been immersed in the vibrant, complementary colours and designs of both the decorated furniture and of the painted vases. Those who handled the vases, which were within easy reach, were temporarily transmuted into collectors and connoisseurs. They also phys­ic­ al­ly interacted in a powerful and immersive manner with elements of vase dec­or­ ation which had been transformed into three dimensions. For example, in sitting on the klismoi chairs visitors were transformed into figures of Greek vase icon­og­ raphy come to life; and in handling furniture decorated with vase motifs and plastic features the visitors found themselves playfully turned into tiny figures sprawled over vases in a distorted and ever-­shifting scale.

Thomas Hope, Costume of the Ancients (London, 1809 and 1812) Costume of the Ancients, first published in 1809 and again, in a significantly expanded version in 1812,42 was intended to provide ‘actual practitioners in art’,43 who could not afford to travel to see the antiquities themselves, with a portable, low-­cost, comprehensive set of classical models to use in their cre­ations.44 Hope envisages three types of uses: first, further graphic use in paintings, particularly ‘historical compositions’;45 second, three-­dimensional works by the ‘ornamental architect’;46 and third, embodied use by ‘dramatic performers’47 and also by women in their daily lives.48 Hope contrasts his ‘little book’49 with antiquarian

  I refer mostly to the 1812 edition, except where the introduction to the 1809 edition differs. On Hope’s original drawings see Van Keuren 2008. 43   Hope 1812, Vol. 1: xi. 44   Hope 1812, Vol. 1: vii–­ix: to give English artists access to classical subjects that they cannot see in person or even in reproductions in libraries. Hope 1812, Vol. 1: x: ‘a portable volume or two’; ‘my little book’. Hope 1809, Vol. 1: 10: to provide ‘such details as the painter might oftenest want to introduce’; ‘models for imitation to the artist’, ‘not to advance erudition, but only to promote taste’. 45  Hope 1812, Vol. 1: v, x–­xi. On Hope as patron and commissioner generally see Watkin 1968: 30–60. He commissioned Richard Westall (1765–1836) for a number of paintings: (1) The Expiation of Orestes at the Shrine of Delphos (1804), loosely based on the bell krater British Museum GR1917.12–10.1. See Watkin and Hewat-­Jaboor 2008: 348–9, catalogue no. 54 (on the vase) and fig. 9.4 and 153 on the commission, which only survives in the form of an engraving by William Bond. (2) The Reconciliation of Helen and Paris after His Defeat by Menelaus (1805) based on Homer’s Iliad 3. (3) The Sword of Damocles (1812) based on Dionysius of Syracuse. Both (2) and (3) contain a substantial number of decorative motifs inspired by non-­figural Greek vase decoration. See Chapel 2008a: 151–4. 46 47 48   Hope 1809, Vol. 1: 12.   Hope 1812, Vol. 1: x.   Hope 1809, Vol. 1: 12. 49   Hope 1812, Vol. 1: x. 42

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erudite volumes in a self-­deprecating manner. Although perhaps this should not be taken entirely at face value, it clearly locates the book in a space apart from antiquarian scholarship. A key reason for this proleptic defence is Hope’s practice of drawing freely on a variety of media for his plates, chiefly vase paintings (some from vases in his own collection),50 and also classical sculpture and occasionally printed images in important antiquarian publications such as those of Denon, Montfaucon, and Caylus.51 The publication offers a kaleidoscopic view of Greek vases, continually shifting perspective from close-­up observation of vase surface figures, sometimes themselves handling vessels in a striking mise en abyme,52 through fantastical arrangements of non-­figural vase motifs, to a more holistic view of whole vessels. Hope predominantly draws on Greek vase iconography to depict human figures in a variety of costumes in isolation on the page with no spatial context. Non-­figural vase motifs are deployed both in ways that are faithful to ancient Greek vase icon­og­raphy (e.g. on clothes of figures), and also in innovative ways which were not historically accurate (e.g. on metal greaves and on the clothes of a Roman empress).53 There is also a single instance of abstraction, where non-­figural dec­ or­ation is arranged across a plate in the shape of an oval, and entitled ‘Grecian ornaments & scrolls’ (Figure 4.8).54 Whole vases are also depicted: in addition to instances of figures handling miniaturized vessels, they also occur as single objects in isolation (e.g. ‘Vase with Bacchanalian’),55 and in collections of objects with no indication of spatial setting. The nature of these groups can be typological (e.g. ‘Greek fictile vases’),56 functional (e.g. ‘Bacchanalian implements’),57 or more or less arbitrary (e.g. ‘Phrygian helmet and vases’).58 Most of the vessels depicted as single objects or in groups carry indications of decoration, both figural and non-­figural,59

50   Hope 1812, Vol. 1: i and xii. Figures identified as taken from vases in his own collection: e.g. Hope 1812, Vol. 1: pls 102, 103, 118, 120. 51   Hope 1812, Vol. 1: pl. 3 (Denon); Hope 1812, Vol. 1: pls 38–42 and 44–6 (Caylus); Hope 1812, Vol. 2: pl. 235 (Montfaucon). 52   Complete vessels, including paterae, used by figures: Hope 1812, Vol. 1: pls 11, 23, 49, 50, 52, 54, 55, 57, 60, 62, 77, 90, 92, 101, 106, 116, 119, 120, 129; Hope 1812, Vol. 2: pls 139, 142, 143, 160, 163, 167, 170, 184, 194, 197, 209, 243, 244, 247, 282. 53   Greek vase non-­figural motifs on other objects, e.g. Hope 1812, Vol. 1: pls 20 (Phrygian shields) and 30 (Phrygian quiver); Hope 1812, Vol. 2: pls 135 (greaves), 202 (hanging metal vessel), and 261 (on garment of a ‘Roman empress’). 54 55   Hope 1812, Vol. 2: pl. 168.   Hope 1812, Vol. 2: pl. 230. 56   Hope 1812, Vol. 2: pls 169 ‘Greek fictile vases’ and 221 ‘Greek vases’. 57 58   Hope 1812, Vol. 1: pl. 89.   Hope 1812, Vol. 1: pl. 18. 59   e.g. Hope 1812, Vol. 1, pl. 18 (two vessels with Phrygian helmet); Hope 1812, Vol. 2: pl. 169 (three vessels), 221 (twelve vessels), 227 (two vessels and other furniture), 230 (one vessel).

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F igure 4.8.  Thomas Hope, Costume of the Ancients (London, 1812), Vol. 2, pl. 168. ‘Grecian ornaments & scrolls’; ‘Drawn & Etched by Thos. Hope’. Jkc22 +812Hb. Special Collections, Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library, Yale University.

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while vessels held by figures are generally shown in outline with no indication of dec­or­ation.60 This reflects the scale of the vessels depicted, but beyond that, it accords with their different functions, in the former case as main subjects and in the latter as accessories. The text also engages with Greek vases in relation to costume: Hope discusses the colours of vases, and the decoration, texture, and quality of garments depicted on vases.61 What emerges, then, is Hope’s ambivalent view of Greek vases, both as ­colourful, richly decorated surfaces, and as three-­dimensional objects whose chief feature is their outline form. He articulates this at the end of the introductory text of Costume of the Ancients: ‘These vessels depended for their beauty on that elegance of outline which may make the plainest utensil look graceful, and not on that mere richness of decoration which cannot prevent the most costly piece of furniture, where the shape is neglected, from remaining contemptible to the eye of taste.’62 The outline neoclassical style chosen by Hope for all his published images deriving from Greek vases gave emphasis to this elegance of form, and transformed vases, iconography and all, into conceptual component parts for creative redeployment in paintings, furniture, and other features of interior dec­or­ation. At the same time, the furniture he created in three dimensions, and indeed the historical compositions of other painters which made use of his publications, reflected the richness of vase decoration and colour. The responses of readers and viewers to these plates would have varied in relation to their familiarity with classical art and contemporary neoclassical art. Depictions of vases and their decoration could evoke real three-­dimensional ancient vessels encountered in the British Museum or private houses, but also other important graphic interpretations of vases, such as those of the Comte de Caylus and d’Hancarville.63 Hope’s plates in Costume of the Ancients (1809) can be understood as visual responses to Tischbein’s images of Hamilton’s second collection, in terms of overall graphic style and specific iconographic choices in relation to the very same vases. The comparison of a red-­figure amphora in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge with the engravings it gave rise to by Tischbein and Hope is illuminating (Figure 4.9). Tischbein depicts the full scene of the main side of the amphora, ignoring non-­figural decoration and the other side which depicts a heavily draped man (Figure 4.10). The interaction of the two figures, a warrior

  Exceptions: Hope 1812, Vol. 1: pls 77, 90, 106; Hope 1812, Vol. 2: pl. 163.   e.g. Hope 1812, Vol. 1: xiii: ‘that prodigious diversity in the texture of the stuffs and in the forms of the folds’. 62   Hope 1812, Vol. 1: 36 (my emphasis). 63   Caylus 1752–67; d’Hancarville 1766–7 [1768– 76]. 60 61

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F igure 4.9.  Red-­figure amphora attributed to the Painter of the Louvre Symposion, c.475–425 bc. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 11.17 (Beazley Archive 214410). Side A.

and Nike or Iris, is the focus of his image, their sight lines meeting at the outstretched helmet being offered. The figures are placed on a groundline, while the warrior’s spear exceeds the rectangular frame. The perspective is very close to that of the vase painting: the warrior is in perfect profile to the left, the legs bear the body’s weight equally, and the feet are shown perfectly straight ahead, heavily foreshortened. While this image stays close to the linear details of the vase painting it nevertheless remains an interpretation. For instance, the warrior’s eye is heavily stylized and modified in relation to the vase painting: it is closed at the corner, the upper lid is slimmed down, and the upper eyelashes exaggerated. Hope’s plate goes considerably further down this creative path (Figure 4.11). He has excerpted the warrior figure and positioned him in isolation on the page with no indication of spatial context. He has modified this figure, typical of Greek vase painting in posture and dress, in two main ways: first, he has made the

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F igure 4.10.  William Hamilton, Collection of Engravings from Ancient Vases Mostly of Pure Greek Workmanship Discovered in Sepulchres in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies: But Chiefly in the Neighbourhood of Naples During the Course of the Years MDCCLXXXIX and MDCCLXXXX Now in the Possession of Sir Wm. Hamilton . . . With Remarks on Each Vase/by the Collector, 3 Vols (Naples, 1791–5 [1793–1803]), Vol. 1, pl. 4. Courtesy of The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University.

figure resemble a three-­dimensional sculpture by changing the perspective to a three-­quarter view and depicting the figure in contrapposto (in fact he spe­cif­ic­ al­ly evokes a Roman sculpture through the modification of the hair into three ­corkscrew curls in the manner of Septimius Severus’ hair); and second, conversely, he has added Greek vase decorative motifs to the outfit, specifically palmettes and criss-­cross pattern on the ‘skirt’, a triangular border and dots on top of the stripe of the cloak, and an elaborate geometric pattern to the scabbard. Hope’s fashioning of the vase figure as a sculpture suggests a flexible approach to different classical media, while his addition of vase motifs to a vase figure is redolent of his ability to unpack vases into their component shapes and decoration and to cre­ ative­ly reconfigure them into something highly modern. So here aspects of Greek vase iconography, in creative reconfigurations, are offered as models for contemporary artists to use in their graphic work, and for performers to use in dramatic enactments.

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F igure 4.11.  Thomas Hope, Costume of the Ancients (London, 1812), Vol. 1, pl. 102. ‘Greek warrior from one of my fictile vases’. ‘Drawn by Thos Hope’. ‘Engraved by H. Moses’. Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.

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Designs of Modern Costume, with engravings by Henry Moses (London: 1812) Hope’s stated desire to influence and improve women’s fashion in Costume of the Ancients was also at work in his commissioning Henry Moses (1781/2–70) to draw and engrave twenty plates depicting women, men, and children in the context of contemporary elite domestic interiors.64 Elements of the clothing and hairstyling of the women in particular, and of some pieces of furniture and items of decoration, for example curtains, are classically inspired, with specific elements related to Greek vases. The volume was privately printed in 1812 in small format. In 1823, under the title of A Series of Twenty-­Nine Designs of Modern Costume drawn and engraved by Henry Moses, Esq. the plates were reprinted in a new order, with nine additional ones.65 These introduced some new subjects, including Belinda from Alexander Pope’s Rape of the Lock, unnamed female figures in natural settings (e.g. on a river bank, and in clouds) which combined classical motifs with features of fairies, and named classical subjects of Pericles, Narcissus and Echo, and Pan and Syrinx. The latter two are rendered not in strict neoclas­sic­al outline but in a more impressionistic style with shading. The eclectic mixture of subjects and styles suggests the ease of moving in and out of the classical and neoclassical worlds. The communicative role of the images is underlined by the absence of any accompanying text. The plates are inserted through visual means into the highest tradition of classical art history and archaeology by a single striking intertextual pictorial reference to Winckelmann’s Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums (1764): in plate 4 a Roman relief, famously depicted in the frontispiece of that publication, is shown as a framed image on the wall above card players, its importance underlined by its being the only figured artwork in the volume (Figure 4.12). There is a complex chain of dialogue and transformation of form between Moses’s engraving (which displays this object as a painting or relief in neo­clas­ sic­al outline), the frontispiece engraving in Winckelmann’s Geschichte (which flattens the iconography using heavy shadowing), and the three-­dimensional relief in the Vatican collections—­the ultimate source for both two-­dimensional images. Moses’s engraving, then, alludes both to the two-­dimensional frontispiece and to the three-­dimensional relief itself. Plate 16 serves as a good example of the use of classical motifs, and Greek vases specifically, in Designs of Modern Costume (Figure 4.13). Classical motifs, in particular the meander and palmette anthemion, are used both on hard surfaces (sofa legs, chair, footstool, wall panel) and soft furnishings (curtains, upholstery, cushion). The deployment of such motifs on polished hard wood and soft 64

  Moses 1812. On dress see Ribeiro 2008: 81–3.

65

  Moses 1823.

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F igure 4.12.  Designs of Modern Costume (London, 1812), commissioned by Thomas Hope, pl. 4. ‘H. Moses del et sc.’ Private Collection.

F igure 4.13.  Designs of Modern Costume (London, 1812), commissioned by Thomas Hope, pl. 16. ‘H. Moses del et sc.’ Private Collection.

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textiles, on a grand scale, and in fresh combinations, is innovative. While these motifs are to be found in classical architectural sculpture as well as Greek vases it is likely that Hope’s familiarity with them arose from his extensive Greek vase collection. And indeed many of the motifs are used to mark borders (e.g. the curtains, the floor), in a manner similar to the marking of vase rims. The central section of the marquetry in the floor parquet, or possibly the carpet, comprises a pattern of palmettes set within a circle in tongue motif; this combination is in­nova­tive, yet recalls the decoration of central tondi of kylikes. In addition, there are features of the furniture which derive from the iconography of Greek vases, in particular the legs of the sofa and the back of the chair imitating features of klismoi chairs depicted on Greek vases. A whole vessel is displayed on a pedestal to the right.66 While the pedestal draws on bucrania from Roman altars, on floating figures from Pompeian wall paintings, and also on Egyptian sphinxes, the vessel evokes a Greek vase in the arrangement of the decorative figures in a frieze on its central body, and in the use of non-­figural elements—­rays at the base and floral tendrils at the neck and on the handles. The shape of the neck and the handles suggests that this is a contemporary vase, likely made of alabaster, and not an imitation of a Greek vase. Yet the depiction of a whole vessel in proximity to this array of decorative motifs drawn from vase painting blurs the line between the ancient and the con­ tem­por­ary. A woman sits on a chair wearing a long dress decorated with an ivy leaf motif at the border, and a short overgarment which recalls the overhang of the  classical peplos. Both this overgarment and the sleeve of the dress are decorated with a border of buds. Two shawls or throws on the chair and sofa are decorated with palmette and wreath borders. Like Louisa Hope in her portrait, the female body is thus figured as a bordered vessel, and simultaneously as an ancient Greek woman from vase iconography, through the overgarment, the decoration of her clothes, and her headdress and knotted hairstyle.67 This link to the iconography of women on Greek vases is also suggested by the decoration on the vase depicted on the pedestal: a woman in a long, draped garment with her hair pinned up is in the centre of the frieze, set in between two warriors. The posture of the woman herself, who leans forward in the chair to embrace a child, is not drawn from Greek vase iconography. It is ­precisely the combination of entirely contemporary elements (e.g. the dog with shaggy hair, and the baskets of sewing and scissors on the table) with

  For whole vessels under half-­moon tables see also Moses 1812: pl. 7.   The headdress and hairstyle are drawn directly from Greek vase images of women in the late ­classical period. See also headdresses in Hope 1812, Vol. 1: pls 98, 108; Hope 1812, Vol. 2: pls 162, 166, 174. 66

67

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persistent features from Greek vases that distinguishes this vision of élite modern life. The overall effect of the use of Greek vase non-­figural motifs and specific iconographic details is an overload of Greek decoration; it is as if the decorated surfaces of ceramic vases have been peeled off, separated into their component parts, reconfigured, and poured over the plate. The outline neoclassical style itself figures the modern, fashionable, British élite interior as the iconography of a Greek vase. The plates simultaneously gesture towards ancient Greek vases, neoclassical interiors, and live bodies of women fashioned in vase motifs and as vase iconography.

CONCLUSION

Hope’s creative engagement with Greek vases was only one element of his ­collecting and designing activities. The first section explored the use of a ­picturesque painterly style in the depiction of Greek vases in watercolour and oil paintings painted by Hope himself or commissioned by him. The ancient mise en scène in the watercolours of Hope and Gandy gives the vases an antiquarian flavour, while Archer Shee depicts Greek vases as glossy counterparts of Louisa Hope herself in her oil portrait. The second section focused on the plates related to Greek vases in publications by Hope or commissioned by him. Their neo­clas­ sic­al outline style figured the vases as highly modern. Depicted in this style, and indeed displayed in modern, fashionable, Robert Adam interiors, Greek vases could be seen as modern and cutting-­edge objects in late eighteenth-­century and early nineteenth-­century Britain. The close association of the neoclassical style with Greek vases, pioneered by Tischbein, carried through to its use for other subjects, figuring them as Greek vases. Hope’s prolific use of whole vessels and parts of vase iconography suggests an engagement of ease and creativity, unbounded by emerging lines of demarcation between classical scholarship and design. Hope’s publications which feature images of vases and their iconography aimed to popularize classical models for painters and furniture designers. They were intended to give rise to new two- and three-­dimensional art and objects for contemporary use in domestic in­ter­iors; as such, the publications mediated between real ancient vases and future modern creations, sometimes in intertextual dialogue with other books about Greek vases. Hope’s engagement with Greek vases places him on the one hand within the eighteenth-­century discourse of faithful reproduction of clas­ sic­al models and the promulgation of good taste, and links him to the approaches to Greek vases pioneered by William Hamilton (1730–1803) and Josiah Wedgwood (1730–1795). On the other hand, his engagement with Greek vases

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also strongly features nineteenth-­century Romantic reappropriation and creative adaptation of classical culture for modern living, as seen, for instance, in the collection and design oeuvre of Sir John Soane (1753–1837). In the broader history of responses to Greek vases, Hope’s approach contrasts markedly with John Beazley’s (1885–1970): despite both men’s intense interest in recreating the strokes of ancient painters, the aims were entirely different. While Beazley aimed to recover the ‘hands’ and artistic personalities of vase painters in their antique settings, Hope aimed to mediate between the ancient artefacts and con­ tem­por­ary practice of artists and designers. His publications show that he concurrently envisaged Greek vases as collectible archaeological artefacts within larger modern interior spaces, and as objects to unpack into their component parts of figural and non-­figural decoration and to reconfigure into modern paintings, furniture, and clothing on the bodies of real women.

BI BL IOGR A PH Y A non . 1955. A New Description of Sir John Soane’s Museum (London: The Trustees). A rcher S hee , M. 1860. The Life of Sir Martin Archer Shee: president of the Royal Academy, 2 Vols (England: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts). Bindman, D. 2008. ‘Thomas Hope’s Modern Sculptures: “A Zealous and Liberal Patronage of Its Contemporary Professors” ’, in D. Watkin and P. Hewat-Jaboor (eds), Thomas Hope: Regency Designer (New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press), ­131–49. C aylus , A.  C. P., C omte de . 1752–67. Recueil d’antiquités égyptiennes, étrusques, grecques, romaines et gauloises, 7 Vols (Paris: Desaint & Saillant). C hapel , J. 2008a. ‘Thomas Hope’s Contemporary Picture Collection’, in D. Watkin and P.  Hewat-Jaboor (eds), Thomas Hope: Regency Designer (New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press), 151–67. C hapel , J. 2008b. ‘The Old Master Collection of John, Thomas and Henry Philip Hope’, in D.  Watkin and P.  Hewat-Jaboor (eds), Thomas Hope: Regency Designer (New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press), 169–91. C ohen , A.  H. 2013. ‘Domestic Utility and Useful Lines: Jean-Charles Krafft’s and Thomas Hope’s Outlines’, Journal of Art Historiography 9 (December): 1–20. C ola , M. C. 2019. ‘Thomas Hope and Gioacchino Marini: “Roman Agent of English Gentlemen” ’, in S. Avery-Quash and C. Huemer (eds), London and the Emergence of a European Art Market, 1780–1820 (Los Angeles, CA: The Getty Research Institute), 231–44. C oltman , V. 2006. Fabricating the Antique: Neoclassicism in Britain, 1760–1800 (Chicago, IL; London: University of Chicago Press). C oltman , V. 2012. ‘ “The Most Ancient Monuments of the Fine Arts”: Collecting and Displaying Greek Vases in Early Nineteenth-Century English Interiors’, in V. Coltman (ed.), Making Sense of Greek Art (Exeter: University of Exeter Press), 121–39.

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D’H ancarville , P.-F.  H. 1766–7 [1768–76]. Antiquités étrusques, grecques, et romaines tirées du cabinet du M. William Hamilton: Collection of Etruscan, Greek and Roman Antiquities from the Cabinet of the Hon. Wm. Hamilton, 4 Vols (Naples: Morelli). D orey , H. 1992. ‘Soane as a Collector’, in P.  Thornton and H.  Dorey (eds), A Miscellany of Objects from Sir John Soane’s Museum (London: Laurence King), 122–6. E lsner , J. 2001. ‘Coda: A Pictorial Postscript’, in S. E. Alcock, J. F. Cherry and J. Elsner (eds), Pausanias: Travel and Memory in Roman Greece (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 256–60. F laxman , J. 1807. Compositions by John Flaxman, Sculptor, R. A., from the Divine Poem of Dante Alighieri: Containing Hell, Purgatory and Paradise (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme). G andy , J. 1805. Designs for Cottages, Cottage Farms and Other Rural Buildings, and the Rural Architect (London: B. McMillan). H amilton , W. 1791–5 [1793–1803]. Collection of Engravings from Ancient Vases Mostly of Pure Greek Workmanship Discovered in Sepulchres in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies: But Chiefly in the Neighbourhood of Naples during the Course of the Years MDCCLXXXIX and MDCCLXXXX Now in the Possession of Sir Wm. Hamilton . . . with Remarks on Each Vase/by the Collector, 4 Vols (Italy: Wm. Tischbein). H ope , T. 1807a. ‘On Instruction in Design’, in P. Hoare (ed.), The Artist: A Collection of Essays Relative to Painting, Poetry, Sculpture, Architecture, The Drama, Discoveries of Science and Various Other Subjects I, no. 8 (2 May 1807), 1–7. Reprinted in two volumes (London: John Murray, 1810). H ope , T. 1807b. Household Furniture and Interior Decoration (England: Printed by T. Bensley for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme). H ope , T. 1809. Costume of the Ancients (England: Printed for William Miller by W. Bulmer). H ope , T. 1812. Costume of the Ancients, a new enlarged edition (England: Printed for William Miller). H ope , T. 1819. Anastasius, or Memoirs of a Greek (London: John Murray). H ope , T. 1835. An Historical Essay on Architecture, Illustrated by Drawings Made in Italy and Germany (London: John Murray). J enkins , I. 2008. ‘The Past as a Foreign Country: Thomas Hope’s Collection of Antiquities’, in D. Watkin and P. Hewat-Jaboor (eds), Thomas Hope: Regency Designer (New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press), 107–29. K ostova , L. 2007. ‘Degeneration, Regeneration, and the Moral Parameters of Greekness in Thomas Hope’s Anastasius, or Memoirs of a Greek’, Comparative Critical Studies 4 (2), 177–92. L ukacher , B. 2006. Joseph  Gandy: An Architectural Visionary in Georgian England (London: Thames and Hudson). M illin , A. L. 1802–6. Monuments antiques, inédites ou nouvellement expliqués, 2 Vols (Paris: Laroche, Pierre-Nicolas-Firmin Didot, Imprimerie impériale). M oses , H. 1812. Designs of Modern Costume, with engravings by Henry Moses, (London: Privately printed). M oses , H. 1823. A Series of Twenty-Nine Designs of Modern Costume drawn and engraved by Henry Moses, Esq. (London: E & C. McLean).

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N olan , J. 2008. ‘The Tragic Mask of Anastasius/Selim: A New Introduction to Hope’s Novel’, in D.  Watkin and P.  Hewat-Jaboor (eds), Thomas Hope: Regency Designer (New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press), 237–41. P etsalis -D iomidis , A. 2019. ‘Local Engagements with Ancient Greek Vases in Ottoman and Revolutionary Greece, c.1800–1833’, in E. Richardson (ed.), Classics in Extremis: The Edges of Classical Reception (London: Bloomsbury Academic), 35–58. P iranesi , G.  B., and L.  F icacci . 2000. The Complete Etchings (Cologne; London: Taschen). R auser , A. 2020. The Age of Undress: Art, Fashion, and the Classical Ideal in the 1790’s (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press). R ibeiro , A. 2008. ‘Fashion à l’Antique: Thomas Hope and Regency Dress’, in D. Watkin and P.  Hewat-Jaboor (eds), Thomas Hope: Regency Designer (New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press), 77–89. T hornton , P. and H.  D orey . 1992. A Miscellany of Objects from Sir John Soane’s Museum (London: Laurence King). T illyard , E.  M.  W. 1923. The Hope Vases: A Catalogue and a Discussion of the Hope Collection of Greek Vases, with an Introduction on the History of the Collection and on Late Attic and South Italian Vases (Cambridge: University Press). T sigakou , F.-M. 1985. Thomas Hope (1769–1831): Pictures from 18th Century Greece (Athens: Melissa). V an K euren , F. 2008. ‘New Discoveries: Unpublished Drawings by Thomas Hope and Henry Moses in the Gennadius Library, Athens’, Nineteenth-century Art Worldwide 7.2. Web. W atkin , D. 1968. Thomas Hope 1769–1831 and the Neo-Classical Idea (London: John Murray). W atkin , D. and P.  H ewat -J aboor (eds). 2008. Thomas Hope: Regency Designer (New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press). W aywell , G.  B. 1986. The Lever and Hope Sculptures: Ancient Sculptures in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, and a Catalogue of the Ancient Sculptures Formerly in the Hope Collection, London and Deepdene, Monumenta artis Romanae 16 (Berlin: Gebr. Mann).

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5

The Flattened Greek Vase Milette Gaifman

I N T RODUCT ION And just as Raphael’s first sketch of his ideas . . . reveals the master to the connoisseur no less than his finished drawings, so the great dexterity and assurance of ancient artists are seen in these vessels more than in any other works. A collection of them is a treasure trove of drawing.1, 2

In these lines, the father of modern art history, Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–68), cast ancient painted pottery as analogous to drawings (Zeichnungen) of the highest artistry. On their own, his lines seem mere affirmations of ancient ingenuity. Within the broader history of the study of Greek pottery, however, they are striking for they portend the dominant perception of vase painting as analogous to flat drawings.3 This notion is also witnessed in reproductions of Greek painted pots on the printed page, which became necessary once the objects entered art-­historical study.4 This paper explores how a particular class of illustrated books from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries articulated modes of viewing Greek painted pots as drawings. In Winckelmann’s time, the Italian vase market was bustling. Painted pots uncovered in great numbers around the bay of Naples became prized collectibles 1   I am grateful to Caspar Meyer and Alexia Petsalis-­Diomidis for inviting me to contribute to this volume. An earlier version was presented in a workshop in Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in 2015, where it benefited from the comments of Nikolaus Dietrich, Katharina Lorenz, Richard Neer, and Peter Stewart. Thanks also to Ursula Kästner for our discussion of Eduard Gerhard, to Jas’ Elsner for comments on an earlier draft, and to the anonymous reader. 2   Winckelmann (1764) 2006: 178. 3   For a general histories of the study of Greek vases, see, e.g., Jahn 1854; Cook 1972: 287–327; Von Bothmer 1987; Sparkes 1996: 34–63; Rouet 2001: 7–40; Oakley 2009. 4  On the illustrated art-­history book, see Palmer and Frangenberg 2016: esp. 2–7 for review of approaches and earlier bibliography. For the eighteenth century in particular, see Haskell 1988.

Milette Gaifman, The Flattened Greek Vase In: Drawing the Greek Vase. Edited by: Caspar Meyer and Alexia Petsalis-­Diomidis, Oxford University Press. © Caspar Meyer and Alexia Petsalis-­Diomidis 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192856128.003.0005

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and subjects of heated debates regarding their origins. Winckelmann’s evocative pen, however, shifted focus to the vessels’ visual qualities.5 His words articulate a profound change that took place in his time from perceiving ancient pots as implements to considering them as surfaces for imagery. As discussed in greater detail elsewhere in this volume, in the seventeenth century Greek vases were depicted as three-­dimensional containers adorned with surface imagery, seen, for example, in the wash drawing of a vase from Cassiano dal Pozzo’s Paper Museum,6 or the engravings of a pelike from the library of Cardinal Barberini from Michel-­Ange de La Chausse’s Romanum Museum of 1690 (see Figure 3.1 in this volume). The eighteenth century’s new approach to the painted Greek vase, witnessed in Winckelmann’s remarks, was articulated in illustrated publications. In what follows, I will examine how modes of reproduction and choices of format adopted in the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries presented images on vases effectively as drawings, separable from their original surfaces; the vessels themselves had become secondary. There are, of course, unique challenges in transposing decorated ceramics into a two-­dimensional format. Greek painted pots were designed to be seen from various angles, and their curvatures make it difficult—­or impossible—­to capture an entire scene within a single viewpoint. The challenges are exacerbated by the clay’s various slips and added lines. Inevitably, any process of two-­dimensional replication leads to some kind of flattening of the three-­dimensional object. The argument set out here concerns the choices made in the process of illustrating vases, choices that are not the product of the medium’s limitations or technological insufficiencies. These decisions involve framing strategy, size of elements, and colour schemes. I focus on two large-­scale, influential publications. The first is Collection of Etruscan, Greek and Roman Antiquities from the Cabinet of the Hon. W.  Hamilton His Britannick Maiesty’s Envoy Extraordinary at the Court of Naples by Pierre-­François Hugues (known as the Baron d’Hancarville) (1719–1805), which appeared in four volumes between 1767 and 1776 (henceforth AEGR).7 The second is Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder, hauptsächlich etruskischen Fundorts by Eduard Gerhard (1795–1867), published in Berlin in four volumes between 1840 and 1858. The two differ in their aim and focus. One publicized a private collection, while the other was intended as a learned systematic presentation of recently uncovered Greek vases. One included the writings of a scion of the pre-­disciplinary age, the other comprised the text of a   On ‘pots’ becoming ‘vases’, see Ceserani 2012: 42–6.   Cassiano dal Pozzo’s Paper Museum, wash drawing of a South Italian bell krater now lost, c.1650. London, British Museum, 2005,0927.106. 7   Ramage has shown that while the title page of volume I has the date 1766, it was published in 1767, and while the other volumes all advertise a date of 1767, volume II appeared in 1770 and volumes III and IV in 1776 (Ramage 1991). 5 6

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formidable university professor. Both publications were impactful, and in both the illustrations of vases were the centrepiece, comprised of colour plates, mostly in a quadrangular format, and separate line drawings of the vases’ shapes.

D’H A NC A RV I L L E’S MODEL S OF M AGN I F ICENCE

D’Hancarville’s publication of Sir William Hamilton’s collection of antiquities was a watershed. The handsome folios, the first of their kind in scale and quality, comprise meticulously engraved title pages, text in English and French, and several hundred carefully drawn plates of vases.8 The tomes initiated the practice of publishing large corpora of vases,9 and ushered in a new phase in the production of large-­scale art-­history books with colour plates.10 In order to produce the lavish volumes, d’Hancarville raised large sums and assembled a group of artists to execute his vision, chief among them Giuseppe Bracci, a draughtsman who was previously a tapestry designer in Pisa.11 The books familiarized the public with Sir William’s magnificent collection, elevated its value, and facilitated the sale of many of its items to the British Museum. In all four tomes, the plates are preceded by d’Hancarville’s text on the history and nature of ancient art, while the vast majority of the illustrated vases do not receive any explanation. There is also no apparent logic or organizing principle to the images’ placement within the books. The volumes, however, all contain the same three types of illustrations of the vases: line engravings, cross sections with measurements,12 and hand-­coloured engravings of the imagery. Take for instance plates 101–3 from AEGR II of a jug that is today in the British Museum (see Figure 10.6a–­c in this volume). This vase (c.440 bc), attributed to the Shuvalov Painter, features the image of two youths (Figure 5.1). The AEGR volume includes three renditions. The first is a black-­and-­white engraving of the jug in profile (see Figure 10.6a). The careful line drawing captures the light reflecting off the ceramic surface, emphasizing its three-­dimensionality and curva­ture. The second is the vase’s cross section rendered in fine line with precise measurements (see Figure 10.6b). The final plate in this group is a rectangular image in colour showing the vase’s two figures in terracotta red against a black

8  For detailed accounts of the volumes and their production, see Jenkins 1996; Haskell 1987; Lissarrague and Reed 1997; Ramage 1991; Ramage 1987; Griener 1992: esp. 118–46; Heringman 2013: esp. 125–38. 9   A chief example is the CVA. See Rouet 2001: esp. 124–34. 10   Lissarrague and Reed 1997: 287. 11   See Ramage 1987; Heringman 2013: 125–38 with further bibliography. 12  D’Hancarville referred to these renditions in a report to Hamilton as ‘perspectives, mesures, et fonds’ (Lissarrague and Reed 1997: 294, note 53, with Griener 1992: 118–20).

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F igure 5.1.  Jug attributed to the Shuvalov Painter, c.440 bc. London, British Museum, E525. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved.

background with some white details (see Figure  10.6c). The enclosing frame consists of the same motifs that define the vase’s pictorial field: a floral ornament along the upper edge and mouldings along the bottom. D’Hancarville’s introduction to the first volume explains his motivation behind the illustrations. He asserts that his books are intended to make Hamilton’s collection available to a broader public and to advance the arts by offering artists accurate models: It will be readily acknowledged that it is not sufficient to have a general idea of the Vases of the Ancients, as they are given us in the Books . . . [that] only shew what members the Ancients employed in the composition of their Vases, but do not indicate their relative proportions, and one should succeed as ill in copying them after these vague notions, as one should do in attempting to imitate Greek Architecture with success, without having first studied it’s proportions.13

  AEGR I: viii. Note that grammatical and spelling errors are in the original English translation of d’Hancarville’s French text. On the problematic nature of this translation, see Heringman 2013: 128. 13

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D’Hancarville casts his work—­and specifically the books’ distinctive cross ­sections—­as facilitating the task of advancing art through the imitation of the ancients.14 The reference to measurements necessary for copying ancient architecture recalls the period’s drawings of ancient buildings, such as David Le Roy’s Les ruines des plus beaux monuments de la Grèce (Paris, 1758) or the first volume of James Stuart and Nicholas Revett’s Antiquities of Athens (London, 1762).15 D’Hancarville’s line engravings of the whole vases with the meticulous cross sections complete with measurements resemble the pairing of engravings of the ancient buildings together with architectural details. The images replicated in colour plates are also meant as models: It is true that we see at Rome and Naples, admirable remains of the Painting and Sculpture of the Ancients, but it is upon their vases only that we see the traces of their design,16 and it is well known with what care Raphael, Julio Romano, Giovanni da Udine and Poussin, studied after these sort of Monuments; where is then the Sculptor, the Painter, or the Artist, that will not have a pleasure of studying models which served as Masters to those of whom they esteem it an honour to be disciples?17

D’Hancarville compares vase imagery to desseins (preparatory designs) that served as models for great artists. This equivalence aids d’Hancarville’s broader agenda of elevating the value of painted vases.18 In the eighteenth century, drawings rather than paintings were deemed to provide the most unmediated access to the artist’s mind and hand.19 The French author therefore implies that the pots constitute the most authentic models and are therefore ideal sources for artists seeking to replicate ancient art. D’Hancarville’s rhetoric regarding accuracy emerges as less convincing upon closer examination. Take for instance the aforementioned three plates of the British Museum’s jug (see Figures 10.6a–­c in this volume). Although they are among the most faithful of the AEGR’s reproductions, the line rendition of the vase presents the seated youth, who has curly hair and wears a garland on the actual jug (see Figure 5.1), as having long hair and a fillet around his head. The white lines which decorate the chair in the drawing are also not detectable on the original. There are further divergences in the appearances of the wreaths and the lyre’s relation to the youth’s body. 14   This endeavour was also promulgated by Winckelmann (1755) and the Comte de Caylus (see Rouet 2001: 10–13). 15   On the period’s architectural drawings of antiquities, see Middleton 2004. 16 17   In the French, ‘traces de leur dessein’ (AEGR I: xix).   AEGR I: xviii. 18   The question of valuation of vases was also hotly debated in the twentieth century and framed in response to eighteenth-­century ideas. See Vickers 1985; Vickers and Gill 1994; and Jenkins and Sloan 1996: 40–64. 19   Smentek 2014: esp. 8, 106–12. For an overview of the role of drawings in copying antiquity from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century, see Aymonino 2015.

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Such discrepancies may perhaps be attributable to the relative speed of ­ roduction for the AEGR’s first two volumes from 1766 to 1770.20 Understandably, p even in cases where the renderings were made directly from Sir William’s vases, they could not perfectly capture every detail of every vase.21 However, further comparison between model and copy reveals a more profound shift in the spatial relations between the figures. On the jug, the two men are positioned beneath the spout and the slight angle between them is underscored by the depiction of the satchel hanging in the centre. In the reproduction, the youths face each other directly, and the nuanced tension created by the pitcher’s curvature is completely lost. The flattening effect is compounded by the plate’s frames. On the vase, the upper and lower borders are of different length, highlighting the jug’s form. In the reproduction, the frame is rectangular, and although the borders resemble those of the original, they are accentuated by additional lines on either side and a black border. The pot’s figural decoration resembles a framed drawing, painting, or preparatory design for a tapestry, casting the imagery as unrelated to the surface on which it was originally made. The conceptual separation between pictorial representations and ceramic surfaces pervades all four volumes. In fact, one often encounters colour plates with no accompanying line engravings or cross sections, so that the reader cannot know the type of vessel on which the original image was rendered. Take, for example, plate 26 of the first volume, which includes no engravings of the pot from which it was copied or indications of its curved medium (Figure 5.2). We can only infer the likely original for this copy because a red-­figure hydria in the British Museum has a similar composition of three female figures (Figure 5.3). Likewise, it is not unusual to find a cross section without any engravings or ­colour plates, so that the reader cannot tell its source or to which specific vase the drawing with its measurements belongs, such as the section of a stamnos in AEGR I (Figure 5.4). Such isolated cross sections or colour plates fully divorce the vessel’s pictorial representations from their surfaces. The approach to imagery as an independent entity is also evident in vases with two or more scenes. Take for example a red-­figure calyx krater in the Manner of the Peleus Painter (c.450–400 bc), currently in the British Museum (Figure 5.5). AEGR IV presents only one colour plate for the vase, a scene featuring a kithara player with seated audience and two winged female figures, presumably Nikai (Figure 5.6), which was later copied in a jasperware plaque by Josiah Wedgwood

20   Between 1766 and 1770, d’Hancarville lodged and fed at least twelve artists; a great number of plates were completed already in early 1767 (Heringman 2013: 125–38). See also Ramage 1987; Ramage 1990; Jenkins and Sloan 1996; Lissarrague and Reed 1997. 21   Around a third of the colour plates were based on engravings and not on autopsy of the objects (Lissarrague and Reed 1997: 283–6).

F igure 5.2.  AEGR I, pl. 26. Courtesy of The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University.

F igure 5.3. Hydria, c.440–30 BC. London, British Museum, E221. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved.

F igure 5.4.  AEGR I, pl. 58. Courtesy of The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University.

F igure 5.5.  Kalyx krater in the Manner of the Peleus Painter, c.450–440 bc. London, British Museum, E460. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved.

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F igure 5.6.  AEGR IV, pl. 31. Courtesy of The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University.

(1730–95).22 There is no colour plate of the vessel’s other decorated side, nor a line engraving, nor cross section. Even when all of a vessel’s scenes are reproduced in colour plates, each is rendered separately, in its own frame, losing all correspondence.23 Alternatively, imagery from different vases was sometimes combined. A plate from AEGR III, for example, shows a female figure with a libation bowl and jug on the left and a large head of Athena on the right (Figure  5.7). The libation bearer was copied from a white-­ground lekythos (470–460 bc, Figure 5.8), whereas the head of Athena replicates the image from another mid-­fifth-­century bc white-­ground lekythos (Figure 5.9). The colour scheme is also misleading. In this last example, the red background replaces the original’s white. The terracotta ground standardized across all plates emphasizes their similarity to preparatory drawings, for eighteenth-­ century draughtsmen and tapestry designers often used brown-­pasted paper for their cartoons.24 Moreover, the plates uniformly placed the vase imagery within frames, even if there were no decorative borders on the actual vase, forcing the illustration to resemble a framed picture.

  On Wedgewood, see Jenkins and Sloan 1996: 184, with further bibliography.   See, e.g., the reproductions of the hydria signed by Meidias, British Museum, London, E224, in AEGR I: pls 127–30. 24   See Myers 1991: 14, 16, 30, 90; and on colour-­prepared paper in European drawing beginning in the sixteenth century, see Haverkamp Begemann 1999: 76–7. 22 23

F igure 5.7.  AEGR III, pl. 92. Courtesy of The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University.

F igure 5.8. Lekythos, c.470–460 bc. London, British Museum, D27. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved.

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F igure 5.9.  Lekythos attributed to the Bowdoin Painter, c.480–440 bc. London, British Museum, D22. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved.

Examined within its eighteenth-­century context, the approach adopted in d’Hancarville’s AEGR is understandable; this novel production demanded great funds and numerous artists. The eye-­catching folios bespeak the period’s preference for flourishes and their makers’ training in other art forms. Moreover, although d’Hancarville had great intellectual aspirations, his professed primary goals were not scholarly. He hoped to cultivate good taste and enrich the art world more than to further academic enquiry. And his own problematic relationship with the truth emerges already from the title pages’ false publication dates,25 and from his reputed dishonesty, even if he was esteemed as a genius.26 Still, the distortions evident in his volumes did not prevent the rise of a thriving industry of replicas based on the AEGR’s plates, such as the products of the Wedgwood factory.27 Whatever its failures and successes, d’Hancarville’s approach, particularly   Ramage 1991.   In 1759, for instance, he assumed the fictive title ‘Baron du Han’ and the real title of ‘Count of Graffenegg’. See Griener 1992: 34–9; Rouet 2001: 15–16; Heringman 2013: 150–1, on d’Hancarville’s genius. 27   Jenkins and Sloan 1996: 182–4; Coltman 2001. 25 26

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the distinction between vase imagery and vessel form, survived well beyond his time and is witnessed in a publication whose aim was scholarly and whose author contributed to the formation of the academic study of ancient art.

EDUA R D GER H A R D’S SEL ECT ED VA SE S

Gerhard is chiefly known today as a central figure in the establishment of the modern discipline of classical archaeology. A philologist trained in Berlin, he spent many years in Italy where he helped found the Instituto di corrispondenza archeologica (later renamed the German Archaeological Institute) in 1829 and the Archäologische Zeitung in 1843, the predecessor of the Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts.28 He was named archaeologist of Berlin’s Royal Prussian Museum in 1833 and appointed professor in the University of Berlin in 1844.29 Gerhard was deeply involved with Greek painted vases: their study, docu­ men­ta­tion, publication, collection, display, as well as the Italian vase market.30 Notably, Gerhard tabulated more than three thousand painted pots that were found in Vulci’s tombs in 1828 and 1829, introduced new categories for classification, and carefully transcribed vase inscriptions, significantly expanding the list of known pot-­makers.31 Among Gerhard’s greatest achievements was Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder (‘Select Greek Vase Paintings’), which included his explanations and illustrations of more than three hundred vessels, intended for scholars and art lovers alike.32 His four volumes are much less grand than d’Hancarville’s and have received far less historiographic attention. Yet they served as primary references for studies of Greek vases well into the twentieth century, featuring the first colour publications of many of today’s textbook pieces.33 The distinctive feature of this publication within Gerhard’s oeuvre is the Abbildungen (‘Illustrations’), which comprise colour lithographs accompanied

28   According to Gran-­Aymerich, Gerhard was the first holder of a German university degree to embark upon an Italian journey (in 1819), inaugurating the long tradition (Gran-­Aymerich 2001: 294). For the complex nineteenth-­century relationship between Germany and Italy, see Marchand 1996: 51–74, 151–62. On Gerhard’s role in the formation of modern classical archaeology, see Marchand 1996: 54–60; Schnapp 1996: 304–10; Schnapp 2004; Ceserani 2012: 137–42. 29   On Gerhard’s biography, see Stürmer 1997; Hausmann 1997; Gran-­Aymerich 2001: 294–6. 30   This aspect of Gerhard’s work is also discussed by Bernard in this volume. On Gerhard’s role as scholar of vases, see Jahn 1868; Hurschmann 1997; and as curator and collector, see Kästner 1997; Kästner 2014: 104–7. 31   See Luce 1918: 653–5; Von Bothmer 1987: 189–92 and M.-­A. Bernard in this volume. 32   On this publication, see Jahn 1868: 95–6; Hurschmann 1997: 102–3. 33   Examples include the Exekias cup and the Achilles Painter’s name vase, both in the Vatican (see Figures 5.15 and 5.19). See also Jahn 1854.

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by small line drawings. The chromolithographs were made by the Berlin engraver L. Steffen, who also collaborated with Gerhard on other projects.34 As the book’s opening page explains, the reproductions of the largely unknown works were meant to facilitate the study of ancient art, especially as comparanda for pieces in the Berlin museum.35 Gerhard’s many illustrations of vases were organized by the subjects of their imagery: the first volume is dedicated to gods, the second and third to heroes, and the fourth to Greek daily life. Within each volume, the vases are grouped into further subcategories. For instance, all vases bearing water divinities are clustered in one section of the first volume, which is then sub­div­ ided into Nereus, Triton, and Poseidon. Each subsection includes an exposition of the theme with references to primary literary sources and is illustrated by choice pieces to exemplify different iconographies, vessel types, and styles.36 The illustrations that accompany Gerhard’s discussion of Athena’s cephalic birth, for example, begin with a plate of the black-­figure amphora attributed to Group E (c.540 bc), today in Boston (Figure 5.10a–­b). At first glance, the rect­ angu­lar lithograph, rendered in black with some white details against a yellow

F igure 5.10a–­b.  Amphora attributed to Group E, 540 bc. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, 00.330.

  On Steffen, see Dufková and Kästner 2016: 35, 41, note 70.   Gerhard 1840–58, Vol. I: pl. VII. 36   For example, the first volume’s discussion of the birth of Athena, with a full literary account and references to numerous painted pots, is illustrated by three selected vases; Gerhard 1840–58, Vol. I: 1–20. 34

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background, appears to reflect Gerhard’s general assertion that the drawings were moderately reduced for the sake of convenience but lost no accuracy, their consistent colouring enhancing clarity (Figure  5.11).37 Indeed, all figures are easily recognizable: Zeus enthroned, a thunderbolt in his hand, a sphinx beneath his seat, with an armed, miniature Athena emerging from his head. Behind him stand Apollo and Hermes; on the far right is Ares and a female figure, possibly the goddess of childbirth, Eileithyia. The lithograph is accompanied by a small-­ scale drawing of the amphora in its entirety, including a miniature depiction of its other face showing a man riding a chariot. A second glance, however, reveals that although the lithograph is iconographically accurate, it diminishes the original’s colour palette. While the print preserves the white colour added to female skin and Zeus’s throne, it replaces the red added to Ares’s shield and Zeus’s cloak with fine lines for shading. The added red used for beards and patterns of garments on a black-­figure amphora attributed to the Antimenes Painter (520 bc), currently at the British Museum, have similarly disappeared from Gerhard’s lithograph (Figures 5.12a–­b and 5.13). These colour discrepancies may be attributable to technical limitations, and Gerhard openly admits that hatching was used in place of the added red.38 Notably, various hues of red, orange, and yellow seem to have been used interchangeably in the lithographs in order to portray the clay’s red, with no clear indication of the correspondence between particular shades and features on the pots. These modifications bespeak the focus on iconography; colour is secondary unless it serves to identify figures. Accordingly, the added white is included to mark female gender, but it may be excluded when it is purely decorative, like the white dots of Athena’s helmet on the London amphora. In fact, iconographic interpretation seems to have guided the selection of scenes reproduced in colour. The charioteer of the Boston amphora appears only in the small line drawing since he is not a recognizable figure (Figure 5.11). In contrast, the veiled female figure with three men seen on the British Museum’s amphora is portrayed in the vase’s lower colour lithograph to buttress Gerhard’s assertion that the scene presents Briseis led by Achilles (Figures 5.12b and 5.13).39 Gerhard’s chromolithographs resemble the AEGR’s hand-­coloured engravings in their flattening effect. In the lithograph for the London amphora, for instance, all the figures appear on the same plane, yet on the actual vessel Zeus seems closer to the beholder, and the side figures are at a slight angle. Unlike d’Hancarville’s reproductions, Gerhard’s illustrations have no frames or flourishes, 37   Gerhard 1840–58, Vol. I: pl. XII: ‘Die Zeichnungen, mäßig verkleinert, nur bequemer, nicht ungetreuer geworden sind; daß ihre durchgängige Färbung den Eindruck des Urbilds anschaulicher macht.’ 38   Gerhard 1840–58, Vol. I: pl. XII. 39   The scene, however, could also be of Acamas and Demophon with Aethra or of Helen being taken by Paris. It is debatable whether it must be linked with any particular story.

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F igure 5.11. Gerhard, Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder I, pl. I. Courtesy Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library, Yale University.

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F igure 5.12a–­b.  Amphora attributed to the Antimenes painter, 520 bc. London, British Museum, B244. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved.

despite their presence in the originals. For example, the plates do not reflect Athena’s figure cutting through the upper border on the Boston and the London amphorae, a common visual trope,40 nor the helmet of the central male figure and the toes of the leftmost figure transgressing the frame on the secondary side of the British Museum’s amphora. Lithographs of the later vessel also omit the palmettes that the side figures overlap. Such layered elements create dynamism and allusion to depth, which is lost in the reproductions. The focus of the illustrations is on iconography and legibility, and not on the pictorial qualities of the originals. Small line drawings of pots’ forms accompany most of the lithographs. They conform to Gerhard’s expressed intention of giving an idea of the vessels’ overall shapes, but they fail to show where images were originally placed. The line drawing of the Boston amphora includes the charioteer and merely implies a similar placement of Athena’s birth on the vase’s other face. More strikingly, the drawing for the London amphora presents the vessel with only its upper and lower borders, deleting the vase’s imagery. Despite the diminutive size of the line drawings, Gerhard’s text elaborates on the pots’ forms and their general roles, whether for storage, drinking, wine-­mixing,   Gaifman 2017: 401–8.

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F igure 5.13. Gerhard, Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder I, pl. II. Courtesy Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library, Yale University.

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F igure 5.14.  Cup signed by Exekias, c.540–530 bc. Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlung, 8729. Wikimedia Commons.

or cosmetics.41 He saw pots as living objects, yet his discussion suggests a ­conceptual separation between utility and decoration. The silhouettes primarily determined a particular scene’s rectangular or circular format, but in his illustrated volumes, all the images appear flat. An apt example is the colour reproduction of the well-­known work signed by Exekias (c.540–530 bc) in Munich that depicts Dionysos at the very bottom of the deep wine cup (Figures 5.14 and 5.15). The lithograph is circular, like a tondo, and it obliterates this powerful visual effect, flattening the overall form. The pot’s handles, whose diagonal pos­ition in relation to the god adds dynamism to the scene, are omitted.42 The adjacent line drawings of the pot’s exterior do not convey where Dionysos is placed or his relative size.43 In Gerhard’s rendition, the cup’s form only dictates context and format, much like a canvas or wall space for a painting: the pictorial representation is paramount.   For his discussion of form and function, see Gerhard 1836: 149–54.   On this vase, see Neer 2019. 43  Gerhard 1840–58, Vol. I: pl. XLIX. What appear to be renditions of writings in the plate are explained by Gerhard as damage to the pot. 41 42

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F igure 5.15. Gerhard, Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder I, pl. XLIX. Courtesy Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library, Yale University.

A telling example of Gerhard’s vision is the pot he praises extensively in his discussion of the theme of Athena’s birth. The red-­figure pelike of the Painter of the Birth of Athena (c.460–450 bc) is illustrated by a large lithograph across two adjacent pages (Figures 5.16a–­b and 5.17). The broad format reflects the original’s friezelike quality, depicting the entire scene that encircles the pot without interruption, including all the figures with their identifying inscriptions. There is, however, no accompanying line drawing of the vessel’s shape. This omission is particularly striking given that his readers could not have known what the term pelike describes, as it was not a familiar technical term for a storage vessel. Gerhard introduces the word that is by now familiar to specialists but fails to provide an illustration of the form.44 While Gerhard’s discussion emphasizes the large size of 44

  Gerhard 1840–58, Vol. I: 6.

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F igure 5.16a–­b.  Pelike attributed to the Painter of the Birth of Athena, c.460–450 bc. London, British Museum, E410. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved.

F igure 5.17. Gerhard, Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder I, pl. III. Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library, Yale University.

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the scene compared to the pot and that Athena’s helmet crosses the field’s upper border, these noted visual qualities are absent on the lithograph. Below the colour image are drawings of the figures’ heads in the precise same size as they appear on the pelike.45 These profiles are meant to convey the images’ beauty and uniqueness, as specimens of the ‘freer style’ Gerhard identifies as the apex of Greek artistry. The pelike’s mid-­ fifth-­ century date fits in the High Classical period, already recognized as a zenith of artistic excellence in Winckelmann’s history.46 Correspondingly, the vase receives Gerhard’s lengthiest account and designation as one of the most noble of artworks, a rank the illustrations affirm.47 Similar drawings of figures’ heads appear in the illustrations of other High Classical vases, such as the name vase of the Achilles Painter (c.450–445 bc) in the Vatican (Figure 5.18), where two profiles flank the line drawing of the vase’s shape underneath the large lithograph (Figure 5.19). The small drawing of the vase portrays the other face of the vase (which is not shown in the photographs here), featuring an unidentified, isolated woman extending a libation bowl, while the large colour image presents the woman alongside the labelled figure of Achilles in a single frame, reflecting Gerhard’s interpretation that the two figures belong together, even though on the vase they each appear on a different face of the vessel.48 The lithograph gives no hint of where the figure of Achilles is pos­ itioned on the pot’s surface and that he stands separately. Rather, it articulates Gerhard’s interpretation that the woman is Briseis, while the profiles highlight the ‘most perfect figures’ of the vase. This plate was described in a seminal article by Sir John Beazley’s as featuring ‘miserable reproductions’.49

CONCLUSION

The contrasts in modes of reproduction in the publications of painted vases explored here speak to the evolution of the illustrated book from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century. The illustrations in the earlier lavish folios were produced using copper plates and manual colouring; those in later volumes using chromolithography, the colour-­printing technique developed in the first decades of the nineteenth century.50 Yet both types of reproduction facilitated the   Gerhard 1840–58, Vol. I: 12.   Gerhard’s own pioneering chronologies for vases have long been revised; see Luce 1918: 654–5. 47   Gerhard 1840–58, Vol. I: 18. 48 49   Gerhard 1840–58, Vol. III: 74.   Beazley 1914: 185. 50   For the role of etching in the antiquarian study of antiquity from the Renaissance through the eighteenth century, see Lurin and Burlot 2017. The first chromolithographs were made in 1818 by Alois Senefelder (Gascoigne 1997: 21–4). 45 46

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F igure 5.18.  Amphora attributed to the Achilles Painter, c.450–445 bc. Vatican City, Museo Gregoriano Etrusco Vaticano, 16571. Scala/Art Resource, NY.

conceptual flattening of the Greek painted vase and distinguished between its two elements of form and imagery. The presentation of these two components as distinct elicits their separate treatment. Form can serve as a model for copiers or as indicative of the vessel’s utility. In contrast, imagery can be replicated in various media and studied as if flat. As a result of this conceptual divide, iconography and authorship can be debated without much attention to the shape of the pots. While this approach has yielded much scholarship,51 it risks obscuring fundamental aspects of the Greek painted vase. If a vase’s imagery is acknowledged as of the same material as its ceramic surface and approached as integral to the vessel as a whole, new facets come into focus. We have already noted that on Exekias’s cup, Dionysos appears at the very bottom of the vessel’s deep interior (Figure 5.14). Consequently, when the wine   See, e.g., for iconography: Neils and Oakley 2003; Oakley 2004; Connelly 2007; and for makers: Matheson 1995; Padgett 2017. 51

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F igure 5.19. Gerhard, Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder II, pl. CLXXXIV. Courtesy Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library, Yale University.

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cup is full, the god would appear as if in the depths of a sea of wine, on a ship set into motion by the movement of the handles.52 The large mask-­like eyes painted on the cup’s exterior, identifying it as one of the so-­called eye cups, would have given the effect of a mask on the drinker’s face when in use.53 The visual impact of handling painted pots also affected the jug attributed to the Shuvalov Painter (see Figure 5.1). When the vessel was used for pouring, the two youths would disappear and then reappear for the viewer facing the spout, the likely recipient of the liquid. Not all painted vases present the same degree of sophistication, yet once we consider their potential handling, motion, uses, and imagery’s degree of visibility from various vantage points, we begin to realize the extent of their complexity.54 The inherent connection between image and ceramic object, furthermore, entails various visual effects for depictions on uneven surfaces. Take, for example, the position of Achilles upon the surface of the name vase of the Achilles Painter (Figure 5.18).55 The head is where the amphora curves inwards, the shoulders and torso are relatively more prominent and closer to the beholder, and the feet recede slightly where the vessel narrows. The impact of the curved surface is most notable with the depiction of the spear; its tip is the most removed from the viewer near the vase’s neck, its shaft stretches behind the hero’s head but appears to curve towards the viewer due to the amphora’s form, and its end recedes faintly at the groundline. The image is two-­dimensional, yet the vase’s surface positions various elements on different plains, creating a sense of vibrant three-­ dimensionality. The vase’s form also accentuates the chiastic nature inherent to Achilles’s contrapposto pose. The curved surface highlights the hero’s pon­der­ ation on his spear and straight right leg, whereas the left handle echoes the silhouette of the empty space created by his bent left elbow. This highly nuanced dynamic is also pertinent to the vase’s other side: it invites us to wonder whether Achilles will remain apart or interact with the libation bearer, who may greet him in a ritual of welcome or hope for his safe return from battle.56 He is constantly about to move and yet remains stationary. Greek vases can be flattened not merely through the inevitabilities of two-­ dimensional reproduction but also by the manner they are approached, conceived, and studied. The contributions of d’Hancarville and Gerhard reveal that every generation of scholars is shaped by its own conceptual preferences, an important point to keep in our minds when we set out to explore the multiple facets of Greek painted pots.   For recent monographs on this vase, see Mackay 2010; Moignard 2015.   On eye cups, see Boardman 1974: 107; Frontisi-­Ducroux 1991: 197; Neer 2002: 41–2; Lissarrague 1990; for further references, see Bundrick 2015, who argues for alternative interpretations. 54   For examples of newer, holistic treatments, see Gaifman 2013; Gaifman 2018; Neer 2019. 55 56   Oakley 1997; Neils 2001: 98–100.   Gaifman 2018: 52–85. 52 53

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BI BL I O G RA P H Y Aymonino, A. 2015. ‘ “Nature Perfected”: The Theory and Practice of Drawing after the Antique’, in A.  V.  Lauder (ed.), Drawn from the Antique: Artists and the Classical Ideal (London: Sir John Soane’s Museum), 15–78. Beazley, J. D. 1914. ‘The Master of the Achilles Amphora in the Vatican’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 34: 179–226. Boardman, J. 1974. Athenian Black Figure Vases: A Handbook (London: Thames and Hudson). Bundrick, S. D. 2015. ‘Athenian Eye Cups in Context’, American Journal of Archaeology 119: 295–341. Ceserani, G. 2012. Italy’s Lost Greece: Magna Graecia and the Making of Modern Archaeology (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Coltman, V. 2001. ‘Sir William Hamilton’s Vase Publications (1766–1776): A Case Study in the Reproduction and Dissemination of Antiquity’, Journal of Design History 14.1: 1–16. Connelly, J.  B. 2007. Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Cook, R. M. 1972. Greek Painted Pottery, 2nd ed. (London: Methuen). Dufková, M., and U. Kästner. 2016. ‘The History of the Cegile Vases’, in U. Kästner, D.  Saunders, and R.  Gargiulo (eds), Dangerous Perfection: Ancient Funerary Vases from Southern Italy (Los Angeles, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum), 21–41. Frontisi-Ducroux, F. 1991. Le dieu-masque: Une figure du Dionysos d’Athènes (Paris: Éditions La découverte). Gaifman, M. 2013. ‘Timelessness, Fluidity, and Apollo’s Libation’, RES: Anthropology & Aesthetics 63/64: 39–52. Gaifman, M. 2017. ‘Framing Divine Bodies in Greek Art’, in V.  Platt and M.  Squire (eds), The Frame in Classical Art: A Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 392–424. Gaifman, M. 2018. The Art of Libation in Classical Athens (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press). Gascoigne, B. 1997. Milestones in Colour Printing, 1457–1859: With a Bibliography of Nelson Prints (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Gerhard, E. 1836. Berlin’s antike Bildwerke (Berlin: G. Reimer). Gerhard, E. 1840–58. Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder, Hauptsächlich etruskischen Fundorts, 4 Vols (Berlin: G. Reimer). Gran-Aymeric, E. 2001. Dictionnaire biographique d’archéologie: 1798–1945 (Paris: CNRS). Griener, P. 1992. Le Antichità etrusche, greche, e romane, 1766–1776 di Pierre Hughes d’Hancarville: La pubblicazione delle ceramiche antiche della prima collezione Hamilton (Rome: Edizione dell’Elefante). Haskell, F. 1987. ‘The Baron d’Hancarville: An Adventurer and Art Historian in Eighteenth-Century Europe’, in Past and Present in Art and Taste: Selected Essays (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press), 30–45. Haskell, F. 1988. The Painful Birth of the Art Book (New York: Thames and Hudson).

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Hausmann, U. 1997. ‘Einführung’, in H.  Wrede (ed.), Dem Archäologen Eduard Gerhard 1795–1867 zu seinem 200. Geburtstag (Berlin: Arenhövel), 8–11. Haverkamp Begemann, E. 1999. Fifteenth- to Eighteenth-Century European Drawings: Central Europe, the Netherlands, France, England (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art in association with Princeton University Press). Heringman, N. 2013. Sciences of Antiquity: Romantic Antiquarianism, Natural History, and Knowledge Work (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Hurschmann, R. 1997. ‘Eduard Gerhard als Vasenforscher’, in H.  Wrede (ed.), Dem Archäologen Eduard Gerhard 1795–1867 zu seinem 200. Geburtstag (Berlin: Arenhövel), 101–6. Jahn, O. 1854. Beschreibung der Vasensammlung König Ludwigs in der Pinakothek zu München (Munich: J. Lindauer). Jahn, O. 1868. Eduard Gerhard: Ein Lebensabriss (Berlin: G. Reimer). Jenkins, I. 1996. ‘ “Contemporary Minds”: Sir William Hamilton’s Affair with Antiquity’, in I. Jenkins and K. Sloan (eds), Vases and Volcanoes: Sir William Hamilton and His Collection (London: British Museum), 40–64. Jenkins, I., and K. Sloan (eds). 1996. Vases and Volcanoes: Sir William Hamilton and His Collection (London: British Museum). Kästner, U. 1997. ‘Eduard Gerhard und die Berliner Vasensammlung’, in H.  Wrede (ed.), Dem Archäologen Eduard Gerhard 1795–1867 zu seinem 200. Geburtstag (Berlin: Arenhövel), 87–99. Kästner, U. 2014. ‘Vom Einzelstück zum Fundkomplex: Eduard Gerhards und Robert Zahns Erwerbungen für das Berliner Museum’, in S. Schmidt and M. Steinhart (eds), Sammeln und Erforschen: Griechische Vasen in neuzeitlichen Sammlungen (Munich: Verlag C. H. Beck), 103–13. La Chausse, M.  A.  de. 1690. Romanum museum, sive Thesaurus eruditæ antiquitatis (Rome: Joannis Jacobi). Le Roy, J. D. 1758. Les ruines des plus beaux monuments de la Grèce (Paris: Louis-François Delatour). Lissarrague, F. 1990. The Aesthetics of the Greek Banquet: Images of Wine and Ritual, translated by A. Szegedy-Maszak (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Lissarrague, F., and M. Reed. 1997. ‘The Collector’s Books’, Journal of the History of Collections 9.2: 275–94. Luce, S. B. 1918. ‘A Brief History of the Study of Greek Vase-Painting’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 57.7: 649–68. Lurin, E., and D. Burlot (eds). 2017. L’artiste et l’antiquaire: L’étude de l’antique et son imaginaire à l’époque moderne (Paris: Picard). Mackay, E.  A. 2010. Tradition and Originality: A Study of Exekias (Oxford: Archaeopress). Marchand, S. L. 1996. Down from Olympus: Archaeology and Philhellenism in Germany, 1750–1970 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Matheson, S. B. 1995. Polygnotos and Vase Painting in Classical Athens (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press). Middleton, R. 2004. ‘Introduction’, in D. Le Roy (ed.), The Ruins of the Most Beautiful Monuments of Greece (Los Angeles, CA: Getty Research Institute), 1–199.

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Moignard, E. 2015. Master of Attic Black Figure Painting: The Art and Legacy of Exekias (London: I. B. Tauris). Myers, M.  L. 1991. French Architectural and Ornament Drawings of the Eighteenth Century (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art). Neer, R. T. 2002. Style and Politics in Athenian Vase-Painting: The Craft of Democracy, ca. 530–460 B.C.E. (New York: Cambridge University Press). Neer, R.  T. 2019. ‘Ancient Greek Vessels between Sea, Earth, and Clouds’, in C.  Brittenham (ed.), Vessels: The Object as Container (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 6–49. Neils, J. 2001. The Parthenon Frieze (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Neils, J., and J.  H.  Oakley (eds). 2003. Coming of Age in Ancient Greece: Images of Childhood from the Classical Past (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press with the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College). Oakley, J. H. 1997. The Achilles Painter (Mainz am Rhein: P. von Zabern). Oakley, J.  H. 2004. Picturing Death in Classical Athens: The Evidence of the White Lekythoi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Oakley, J. H. 2009. ‘State of the Discipline: Greek Vase Painting’, American Journal of Archaeology 113.4: 599–627. Padgett, J. M. 2017. The Berlin Painter and His World: Athenian Vase-Painting in the Early Fifth Century B.C. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum). Palmer, R., and T. Frangenberg. 2016. The Rise of the Image: Essays on the History of the Illustrated Art Book (London: Routledge). Ramage, N.  H. 1987. ‘The Initial Letters in Sir William Hamilton’s “Collection of Antiquities” ’, Burlington Magazine 129: 446–56. Ramage, N.  H. 1990. ‘Sir William Hamilton as Collector, Exporter, and Dealer: The Acquisition and Dispersal of His Collections’, American Journal of Archaeology 94.3: 469–80. Ramage, N. H. 1991. ‘The Publication Dates of Sir William Hamilton’s Four Volumes’, Ars Ceramica 8: 35. Rouet, P. 2001. Approaches to the Study of Attic Vases: Beazley and Pottier (New York: Oxford University Press). Schnapp, A. 1996. The Discovery of the Past: The Origins of Archaeology, translated by I. Kinnes and G. Varndell (London: British Museum Press). Schnapp, A. 2004. ‘Eduard Gerhard: Founder of Classical Archaeology?’, Modernism/ Modernity 11.1: 169–71. Smentek, K. 2014. Mariette and the Science of the Connoisseur in Eighteenth-Century Europe (Farnham: Ashgate). Sparkes, B. 1996. The Red and the Black: Studies in Greek Pottery (London: Routledge). Stuart, J., and N. Revett. 1762. The Antiquities of Athens: Measured and Delineated by J. Stuart and N. Revett, Vol. 1 (London: John Haberkorn). Stürmer, V. 1997. ‘Eduard Gerhard (1795–1867): Daten zu seinem Leben’, in H. Wrede (ed.), Dem Archäologen Eduard Gerhard 1795–1867 zu seinem 200. Geburtstag (Berlin: Arenhövel), 12–15. Vickers, M. J. 1985. ‘Artful Crafts: The Influence of Metalwork on Athenian Painted Pottery’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 105: 108–28.

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Vickers, M. J., and D. W. J. Gill. 1994. Artful Crafts: Ancient Greek Silverware and Pottery (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Von Bothmer, D. 1987. ‘Greek Vase-Painting: Two Hundred Years of Connoisseurship’, in Papers on the Amasis Painter and His World (Malibu, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum), 184–204. Winckelmann, J. J. 1755. Gedancken über die Nachahmung der griechischen Wercke in der Mahlerey und Bildhauer-Kunst (Friedrichstadt: Christian Heinrich Hagenmüller). Winckelmann, J. J. 1764. Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums (Dresden: Waltherischen Hof-Buchhandlung). Winckelmann, J. J. (1764) 2006. History of the Art of Antiquity, translated by Harry Francis Mallgrave (Los Angeles, CA: Getty Research Institute).

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6

Images of Greek Vases as a Basis for a Scientific Archaeology Investigating the Archival Legacy of the Gerhard’scher Apparat’s Drawings Marie-­Amélie Bernard

Until Millingen [had devoted himself to the subject] in 1812 or 1813 painted vases were not studied with application & scientific purposes.1, 2

This was the judgement of the archaeologist Emil Braun (1809–56) as expressed at the opening of his conference on Greek vases at the Instituto di corrispondenza archeologica in Rome in 1830. It may seem exaggerated now, but Emil Braun was not the only one to hold this assessment of the discipline’s history. Several scholars considered that the study of Greek vases, and of archaeology in general, had to be renewed by adopting the methodological advances of other fields. Among them, Eduard Gerhard (1795–1868) played a prominent role.3 Born in 1795 in Posen, he studied Classics in Breslau (now Wrocław) and attended lectures in history and philology by Aloys Hirt and August Böckh in Berlin, where

  I thank U. Kästner and M. Maischberger (Antikensammlung, Berlin), and T. Fröhlich (DAI, Rome), for their assistance in studying the drawings discussed in this chapter. I also thank F. Lissarrague† and M. Denoyelle for their advice. This chapter is dedicated to Ursula Kästner. All translations of archival sources are mine, unless otherwise stated. ‘Gerhard’scher Apparat Berlin’ indicates that the drawing is held in the Altes Museum in Berlin. 2   Quoted by John Hamilton Gray in his notebook written during his 1839 travels to Rome and ancient Etruria; National Library, Edinburgh, Acc. 8100–154. 3   On Gerhard, see Schnapp 1993; Rouet 1995; Wrede 1997; Gran-­Aymerich 1998 and 2001; Schnapp 2004; Gran-­Aymerich 2012; Rössler 2012; Kästner 2014. 1

Marie-­Amélie Bernard, Images of Greek Vases as a Basis for a Scientific Archaeology: Investigating the Archival Legacy of the Gerhard’scher Apparat’s Drawings In: Drawing the Greek Vase. Edited by: Caspar Meyer and Alexia Petsalis-­Diomidis, Oxford University Press. © Caspar Meyer and Alexia Petsalis-­Diomidis 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192856128.003.0006

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he received his education especially under the latter’s influence.4 Böckh wanted Classics to go beyond the texts, which had been for decades the primary source from which to study the past, more often than not at the expense of the so-­called ‘monuments’. He promoted a ‘material philology’ and laid the foundation of Altertumswissenschaft, a comprehensive approach to the study of antiquity based on the combination of archaeology, art history, epigraphy, numismatics, and phil­ology. When the young Eduard Gerhard arrived in Italy in 1822, he was aware of the need for a new approach to the study of antiquity that involved the cataloguing of antiquities from the whole peninsula, reports on new discoveries, and the development of interpretative methods. Gerhard’s response to this insight was to draw on the methods of the natural sciences and apply these to archaeology.5 After initial attempts at working with a friendly small circle of scholars, the Hyperboreans, he decided to establish an institution capable of conducting large-­scale studies of classical antiquity. The Instituto di corrispondenza archeologica was officially founded in Rome on 9 December 1828, auspiciously timed to coincide with Winckelmann’s birthday. Eduard Gerhard became its secretary and for years furthered its cause through his tireless commitment. In 1833 Gerhard went back to Berlin to take up the post of archaeologist at the Königliches Museum (the future Antikenmuseum). His successor Emil Braun then played an important role in the functioning of the Instituto, organizing its publications and conferences and corresponding with its members throughout Europe.6 From Berlin, Gerhard continued his involvement in the running of the Instituto through his regular correspondence with Braun, which now constitutes an in­valu­able source of evidence for archaeological approaches and perceptions of the time.7 Both men played a central role in the creation of the Gerhard’scher Apparat, one of the tools conceived by Gerhard to realize the material philology originally envisaged by Böckh. Consisting of drawings, books, original works, and casts, the collection provides a unique resource.8 It includes more than five thousand drawings representing mainly vases, but also mirrors, paintings, sculptures, and reliefs. The documents are now held in the Altes Museum in Berlin and in the archives of the German Archaeological Institute in Rome, along with the drawing collection assembled around the same time at the Instituto.   On Aloys Hirt (1759–1837), art historian and archaeologist in charge of the collections of the King of Prussia and first professor in art history at the University of Berlin, see Zimmer 2012. On the philologist August Böckh (1785–1867), see Gran-­Aymerich 2001 and Hanses 2012. 5   Schnapp 1993: 304–10. 6   Michaelis 1879: 53–4, 88; Fastenrath Vinattieri 2004; Schmidt and Schmidt 2010. 7   Costantini 1998. The letters can be accessed online at http://arachne.uni-­koeln.de/drupal/. 8   Stürmer 1997. 4

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Drawing on the preliminary results of an ongoing research project on textual and visual archives,9 the aim of this chapter is to present part of the Gerhard’scher Apparat, with a focus on the drawings of Greek vases, and to examine their links with Gerhard’s evolving ideas about scientific archaeology.

T H E ST U DY OF GR EEK VA SE S I N T H E 1830s

At the time Gerhard founded the Instituto, momentous discoveries in Vulci changed the face of archaeology, as nineteenth-­century observers soon understood.10 Before excavations in the necropoleis of southern Etruria, the main discoveries of Greek vases had occurred in South Italy, the region of ancient Magna Grecia.11 Vases from these sites were mostly Apulian, Campanian, Lucanian, and red-­figure Attic vases from the Classical period. At the end of 1828, the excavations at Vulci by Lucien Bonaparte, Agostino Feoli, and the Candelori and Campanari families led to the discovery of hundreds of grave assemblages with Greek vases.12 Subsequent excavations at nearby Etruscan sites—­such as Cerveteri and Tarquinia—­ yielded Greek ceramics very different to those previously known—­Attic black- and red-­figure from the Archaic and Classical periods. The finds attracted great interest and gave new impetus to collecting, the art market, and research. In 1831 Gerhard published his Rapporto volcente, which arguably revivified the study of Greek vases and ‘defined both a field of research and a method’.13 Gerhard abandoned the conventional thematic classification developed by eighteenth-­century antiquarians; instead, he proposed an alternative system of classification, based on the observation of technique, shape, figurative and subsidiary decoration, and inscriptions. Specifically, he analysed the vases of Vulci in terms of fabric, iconography, epigraphy, function, chronology, and provenance. He thus approached the vases in a holistic manner, assigning their painted dec­ or­ation to its proper place, that is, as one element among others. This text is often considered as the inception of modern ‘ceramology’. In the next two decades, iconography remained the most important field in the study of Greek vases, but it was not the only one: production sites, technology, artists, inscriptions, ritual and everyday uses, and ancient and modern classifications of shapes were also investigated assiduously by many scholars, always with the aim (if not always achieved) of producing a scientific discourse.14 In this new scientific enterprise

  Bernard 2015; Bernard 2016: 113–32.   Colonna 1992; Bernard 2016: 168–206. 14   Bernard 2016: 216–53. 9

12

11   De Witte 1886: vii.   Castorina 1996. 13   Lissarrague 2002: 10, on Gerhard 1831.

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the copying of Greek vases received renewed interest: the engravings of the past were considered unreliable, and new approaches were pioneered.

BELLES INFIDÈLES: EIGH T EEN T H-­CEN T U R Y R EPR E SEN TAT IONS OF GR EEK VA SE S

At the end of the nineteenth century Salomon Reinach, in a discussion of the history of the study of Greek vases, wrote that older engravings were most of the time ‘belles infidèles’ (unfaithful beauties) which distorted the antique work. Some of his predecessors had already complained about the unreliability of published illustrations.15 The Duke de Luynes (1802–67), for one, was unequivocal in his view of the engravings from the preceding century: ‘Consider, for instance, [the works by] Dempster, Montfaucon, Caylus, Mazochi [sic] and a thousand others whose engravings bear no similarity with the monuments they depict.’16 The archaeologist and naturalist Aubin-­Louis Millin (1759–1818), on the other hand, was more nuanced in his assessment. On the publication of the Hamilton vases by Baron d’Hancarville, for instance, he noted that ‘in some engravings the vases’ particular style has been perfectly preserved but in others the author was preoccupied with producing pleasing figures rather than accurate representations’.17 The second publication drew sarcastic praise: ‘We can reproach M. Tischbein only for finishing his figures more [studiously] than they are in the original works.’18 Millin himself wanted to publish precise engravings ‘traced on the vases themselves for the sake of keeping their style and originality in their whole purity’.19 Nevertheless, the draughtsman or engraver A. Clener—­who was a pupil of Tischbein and engraved many of the vases in the second Hamilton collection—­modified the figures’ style to make them adhere to the neoclassical canon of the time. This is not surprising considering that the editor A. Dubois-­ Maisonneuve intended the engravings as models for contemporary artists and as decorative pieces in their own right.20 The Greek vases had to conform to the taste of the time.

  Denoyelle 2003.  Letter from the Duke of Luynes to E.  Gerhard, 12 February 1829, Archive of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (DAI), Rome. His comment concerns Dempster 1723, Montfaucon 1719, 1724, Caylus 1752–67, and Mazzocchi 1754. 17   Millin 1808–10, Vol. I: IV, note 18, commenting on d’Hancarville 1768–80. 18   Millin 1808–10, Vol. I: IV, note 20. On Tischbein’s work, see also C. Meyer and A. Smith in this volume. 19   Millin 1808–10, Vol. I: IV, note 20. 20   Avertissement by A. Dubois-­Maisonneuve in Millin 1808–10, Vol. I, unpaginated. 15 16

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James Millingen was also aware of this problem and tried to solve it in his own publications by controlling the production of the drawings: ‘Most of the books dealing with vases are reproached for not showing exact pictures but embellishing them by giving them a finish which the originals usually do not have. Here we tried to prevent this infelicity; the author arranged for the drawings to be realized before his eyes and with the strictest accuracy; and each print can be ­considered a fac-­simile in which we conserved the diversity of styles, with all the accomplishments and improprieties of the antique work.’21 The idea that the prints from earlier publications were generally inadequate for the study of Greek vases was thus widely shared among the foremost specialists of the time. Criticism mainly concerns the habitual modification of the figural style. On the other hand, many choices of representation—­including outline drawing, the introduction of new figured details, the elision of non-­figural dec­ or­ation, and the ‘unrolling’ of the image from the vase—­are accepted without discussion. The neglect of the ceramic vessels resulted from the eighteenth-­ century reception of the paintings on them as reflections of the lost masterpieces of antiquity, the works of Zeuxis, Apelles, and other artists famed in the classical literary tradition.22 As the vases were made to conform to contemporary idealizations of ancient Greek art, their affinity with contemporary notions of the clas­ sic­al was accentuated as well as their character as autonomous artworks, rendered in beautiful contours. Gerhard’s ambition to produce ‘accurate’ copies must be understood in this context.

T H E NAT U R E OF T H E A PPA R AT

The history of this collection is complicated and remains understudied. Although we know that Gerhard began to gather drawings as early as 1822, he dated the beginning of the project to 1828.23 While the collection continued to grow even after his death—­with some additions dating as late as the 1890s—­this chapter mainly considers the drawings of the 1830s and 1840s. The professed goal was to create a repository of documents to renew the study of antiquity. This was also to serve as a basis for publications and to preserve information on the plethora of archaeological material that was typically sold to foreign collectors immediately upon discovery. For centuries Rome had been a centre of the flourishing antiquities trade, especially in marble sculpture. Thanks to the discoveries in Etruria, the city now also became an important centre for   Millingen 1813: 12.   Denoyelle 2003. See also the chapters by M. Gaifman and A. Smith in this volume. 23   Milanese 2014: 220; cf. Gerhard 1833. 21 22

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buying ancient vases. Among the foremost dealers offering for sale vases, bronzes, and jewellery from the Etruscan tombs were Giuseppe Baseggio (d. after 1871), the Campanari family, Francesco Capranesi (1796–1854), Francesco Depoletti (1779–1854), and Melchiade Fossati (1798–1849).24 They sold antiquities to such renowned Roman collectors as the Marquis of Campana, ambassadors and diplomatic personnel such as Gustave Adolphe Beugnot and Count Guryev, and other foreign notables visiting the city, including the Marquis of Northampton and Baron von Lindenau.25 In the correspondence between Gerhard and Braun, several letters mention the need for urgency in drawing the vases. For example, the arrival in Rome of Edme Durand (1768–1835), a passionate and wealthy collector, inspired apprehensive industriousness.26 Gerhard exhorted Braun to accelerate the production of illustrations before the French collector could lay his hands on the works: ‘I add . . . that Durand will arrive in Rome within four days. Hence it is of the utmost urgency to finish the drawings of the most im­port­ant objects Apolloni is working on.’27 As evidenced by annotations on the drawings and by the correspondence between Gerhard and Braun, most of the drawings were made in Rome, others in Naples—­where the discoveries and the market of antiquities were still important—­and in various cities or villages, sometimes immediately following the discoveries.28 Gerhard and Braun chose which vases were to be drawn.29 To this end, they regularly visited traders and collections in Rome and, less often, the archaeological sites and small cities in Etruria to spot antiquities. Gerhard wanted to form a comprehensive body of documents with all types of objects represented. In an important article published in 1833, he explains: ‘The realization that the monuments published in previous engraved compilations, few and arbitrarily chosen, were often too poor to give . . . a fair representation of the remains of figured Antiquity had imposed on me the duty to heed the need of a collection of archeological material as diversified as possible rather than the desire of following a consistently pleasing selection.’30 For the vases, the criteria of selection differed from case to case: among them were the rarity of the iconography or shape, the presence of images that could be linked to classical texts, inscriptions (including hitherto unknown signatures), craft excellence, and other unusual   On Giuseppe Baseggio, Bernard 2016: 265–8. On Francesco Depoletti, Bernard 2008; Bernard 2013; and Bernard 2016. On Francesco Capranesi, Brusini 1999. On the Campanari family, Buranelli 1991 and Giontella 2002. On Melchiade Fossati, Filippi 2004. 25   Sarti 2001 (on Campana); Mazet forthcoming (Beugnot); Bukina, Petrakova, and Philipps 2013 (Guryev); Bernard 2014 (Northampton); Fastenrath Vinattieri 2004 (von Lindenau). 26   On Edme Durand, see Détrez 2014. 27   Letter from E. Gerhard to E. Braun, Paris, 25 September 1834, DAI Rome. 28   Colonna and Bernard 2014: 154. 29   Letter from E. Braun to E. Gerhard, 19 January 1835, DAI Rome. 30   Gerhard 1833: 36. 24

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technical features. For example, the Attic red-­figure calyx krater showing Aethra’s return, which was later attributed to Myson and is now in the British Museum,31 attracted Braun’s attention because of its style, subject, inscriptions, shape, and ancient restorations.32 The Apparat can therefore be studied concurrently as a documentation of archaeological discoveries, and of the interests of Gerhard, that is, what he and Braun judged worth preserving, studying, and publishing. The draughtsmen and dealers, as well as Braun, learned to anticipate Gerhard’s predilections, as is shown by the drawings which they produced without prompting, solely for the pleasure of ‘Signor Odoardo’, as he was called by his Italian friends.33

T H E COPY I NG OF GR EEK VA SE S I N T H E GER H A R D’SCHER A PPA R AT: ACCU R AC Y A N D STA N DA R DI Z AT ION

Gerhard wanted the drawings to present a reliable record for specialist re­searchers. In his article ‘Über eine Sammlung archäologischer Inedita’, Gerhard explains that his drawings of Greek vases rivalled tracings and offered ‘unvarnished’ ­documentation.34 Style, iconography, inscriptions, and shape had to be accurately rendered, and the handwritten notes provided information on the dimensions, the origin, and the owner of the vase. The drawings, or at least an important part of them, were made under his personal direction.35 After his departure for Berlin, Braun assumed this role: he accompanied draughtsmen to dealers and collectors to check the quality of the copies. His letters often include sentences such as,  ‘Today I will accompany Borrani to Campanari’s residence to verify the drawing.’36 Sometimes Gerhard and Braun let a draughtsman improve his work.37 They also wanted to see the initial sketch in addition to the finished drawing, particularly in cases where the scale of the reproduction was reduced.38 The two men gave instructions that the drawings should be ‘lucidi’ or ‘Durchzeichungen’: that is, drawn directly on the vases using tracing paper (Japanese or oiled paper) whose fineness and transparency made the process possible. The choice to use   British Museum E 458, Beazley Archive 202164.   Letter from E. Braun to E. Gerhard, 3 September 1834, DAI Rome. 33   Colonna and Bernard 2014: 154. Letter from E. Braun to A. Depoletti, Rome, 28 September 1835, DAI Rome. 34   Gerhard 1833: 36. 35   ‘A selection of drawings of Vulcian works, executed by artists under my guidance and in large part under my supervision.’ Gerhard 1831: note 13. 36   Letter from E. Braun to E. Gerhard, Rome, 25 November 1834, DAI Rome. See also letter from E. Braun to E. Gerhard, Rome, 18 July 1837, DAI Rome; Costantini 1998: 255. 37   Letter from E. Braun to E. Gerhard, Rome, 1 January 1834, DAI Rome. 38   Letter from E. Gerhard to E. Braun, Berlin, 11 November 1834, DAI Rome. 31 32

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tracing paper was motivated by its reliability and potential to fulfil scientific ­aspirations. In their letters, Braun and Gerhard often insisted on the necessity of trustworthy drawings to realize good publications: ‘The Institute’s work must absolutely be prepared with the utmost precision possible.’39 The process of ­tracing in fact approaches mechanical reproduction; by limiting the artistic or interpretative element involved in drawing, the technique guarantees consistent documentation. This accords with Gerhard’s known interest in devices containing diopters or mirrors to obtain accurate representations of monuments in the field of architectural drawing.40 But the process of tracing a three-­dimensional object onto a flat one results in a transformed image. Some drawings show hints of how the reproduction process worked: the decoration was at first traced in sections on different sheets, which were then assembled. In the next step, the tracings were transferred onto the page to produce a unified image, which required the draughtsman to compensate for the distortions visible in the previous composite ‘mosaic’. In some examples, the two versions of the drawing still exist and shed light on the process (Figure 6.1). In some drawings, the second version of the tracing contains elem­ ents that have been reproduced twice, with red markings indicating the actual location on the pot of reproduced parts (Figure 6.2). The drawing also reveals the degree of distortion which the process caused.41 The ornament and the outline shape of the vase are often depicted separately, and the reproduction of the figure scenes can extend over several sheets. For instance, in a finished ink drawing of a cup by the Foundry Painter, the figural representations on the exterior and the interior of the vessel are reproduced in sep­ar­ate sections, accompanied by a thumbnail sketch of the vessel (Figure 6.3). While many drawings are life-­size, as a result no doubt of the use of tracing, some of them have been reduced in scale for publication. The size of the original object is recorded near the scaled sketch of the vase. The separation of the dec­ or­ation from the shape is not, in my opinion, a consequence imposed by the use of ­tracing: rather it is a convention surviving from older antiquarian books. Most of the drawings are monochrome, traced with ink or graphite, but the  colours of the original are often indicated by annotations such ‘black-­ figure . . . black-­figure on yellow ground’, etc. As seen in Figure 6.2, the details of the Archaic black-­figure painting picked out in added colour are marked in the tracing with words and letters in the area concerned or in the annotations in the margin. Moreover, in some drawings these markings were written in coloured ink, but since these annotations are functional rather than mimetic, they do not   Letter from E. Braun to E. Gerhard, Rome, 25 November 1834, DAI Rome.   Letter from E. Gerhard to E. Braun, Berlin, 30 December 1834, DAI Rome. 41   On the process of tracing from a practitioner’s point of view, see K. Morton in this volume. 39 40

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F igure 6.1.  Sectional tracings from the Gerhard’scher Apparat showing an Attic black-­figure amphora attributed to the Painter of Munich 1379, c.540 bc, now in Munich, Antikensammlung 1379 (BAPD 301469) and annotated: Vaso Candelori N116. 71; Vaso Candelori N116. 72; Vaso Candelori N116. 73; Vaso Candelori N116. 74; Vaso Candelori N116. 75. After Gerhard’scher Apparat Berlin XII, 139. Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz.

contravene the generally monochrome nature of the drawings. The linear style of representation primarily results from the tracing technique but was perhaps intentionally retained owing to the influence of previous publications by Millingen and Millin, which had in turn been inspired by the publication of the second Hamilton collection by Tischbein and Clener.42 Some illustrators were very careful and conveyed the varying thickness of the lines in red-­figure vases (Figure 6.4). As the example in Figure 6.3 shows, Greek or more rarely Etruscan inscriptions on vases are always scrupulously recorded, both their location and their spelling. This precision bears out the strong interest which Gerhard, Braun, and contemporary archaeologists more generally had in the names of the mytho­ logic­al characters and in painters’ and potters’ signatures.43 Sometimes a fragmentary inscription is restored in the transcription, as can be seen, for example, in the drawing attributed to Alessandro Depoletti shown in Figure  6.3. It illustrates a cup by the Foundry Painter that belonged to the illustrator’s father, 42   Sarah Symmons (Symmons 1984) considered that Tischbein influenced Flaxman, whose first published outline prints are from 1793; cf. Vollkommer 2007 and Busch 2001: 21–35. 43   On the signatures, see for example Raoul-­Rochette 1831 and De Witte 1848.

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F igure 6.2.  Composite tracing based on the sections reproduced in Figure 6.1, with additional red markings and written instructions: ‘biancha [sic] . . . fig nere fondo rosso; tripode bianco; tutti l’interni di queste rose sono rosse e in globettini che sono all’esterno comeSS anche quelli degli scudi [ill.] sono bianchi . . . ornati sopra le fig . . . fig. nere . . . Candelori’. The letters b and r mean bianco and rosso. A thumbnail sketch of the complete vessel is shown below the tracings, with an indication of its scale (1:5). After Gerhard’scher Apparat Berlin XII, 18. Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz.

the dealer and restorer Francesco Depoletti, and is today in Boston. While the restored areas (especially the three missing sherds marked ‘mancante’, or ‘missing’) were approximately delineated in the drawing, there is no indication of the extent to which the inscriptions were restored. This raises the question of how Gerhard and Braun checked the drawings for accuracy: is it possible that Alessandro Depoletti completed the inscriptions in the drawing under the guidance

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F igure 6.3.  Ink drawing from the Gerhard’scher Apparat showing an Attic red-­figure cup attributed to the Foundry Painter, 490–480 bc, now in Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, 98.933 (BAPD 204364). The annotations read ‘mancante [three times] . . . Alta once 7, Larga palmo 1 ed once 5 . . . Tazza a figure gialle sopra fondo nero appartenente a Depoletti . . . Cerveteri’. After Gerhard’scher Apparat Berlin XXII, 77. Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz.

of Gerhard or Braun? Or did Francesco Depoletti himself restore the inscription on the vase, which would imply proficiency in ancient Greek, or with the advice of another archaeologist? Without further ‘metadata’ from either the drawing or accompanying letters, it is not possible to answer such questions. The vases were often discovered in a fragmentary state and were taken for restoration to Rome or Naples. As illustrated in the example just discussed, the drawings often indicate such restorations.44 The lines of the fractures are not marked in the drawing; instead this type of information is conveyed in marginal notes, such as ‘Good’, ‘Complete’, ‘Small pieces missing’, etc. Only gaps in the figurative decoration are graphically indicated, which highlights the project’s dominant interest in images. In some instances, the lacunae are simply left blank or surrounded by a contour line.45 As can be seen in Figures 6.3 and 6.4, in other examples the missing sections of the decoration were restored, delineated by a  continuous or dotted line, and labelled ‘mancante’ in cursive handwriting.   Bernard 2015.

44

45

  Bernard 2015: 28, fig. 1.

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F igure 6.4.  Ink drawing from the Gerhard’scher Apparat representing an Attic red-­figure cup attributed to the Ashby Painter, c.500 bc, now in New York, Metropolitan Museum 1993.11.5 (BAPD 212581). After Gerhard’scher Apparat Berlin XXI, 47.1. Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz.

The  restorations raise questions about the aims motivating the illustrator’s interventions: did he seek to reproduce the vase’s state of preservation when he drew it? If so, do the different types of annotation designate different types of res­tor­ation, visible ones and invisible mends disclosed by the collector? Or were these choices made independently of the appearance of the vase, indicating strictly which parts were ancient? In several cases we have vases represented twice by Alessandro Depoletti, with and without restorations, and with both types of

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annotation being used, which suggests that the drawings aimed to reproduce the actual condition of the vase. This would explain why the marks left retro­spect­ ive­ly to designate the restored areas are sometimes found to be inaccurate when compared with the surviving vase. At the same time, some drawings of vases do not identify restored areas even if their existence was known. Such decisions may have been linked to requests by scholars at the Instituto who, having approved of a restoration, wanted a drawing of the piece in its final state, or even dealers’ requests for the incomplete state of a vase to be concealed. Finally, it is also possible that the draughtsman did not spot restorations that had been done so perfectly in keeping with the original decoration as to reveal themselves only under exceedingly close scrutiny or through chemical testing.46 Although all drawings bear annotations, not all of these were made by the draughtsman himself. In fact, we can distinguish different hands using different languages, providing evidence for the development, cataloguing, and study of the collection. For example, the paper mount of the five sectional tracings shown in Figure 6.1 shows index references at the margins consisting of numbers and letters (XII 139 in the top right corner, M 454 in the bottom left, and Ghd 58 in the centre) which seem to correspond to three different inventories. Some drawings do not include any indication of their subject’s ownership, provenance, or condition. Where these indications do exist, they can relay information on the technique (Figures  6.2,  6.3, and  6.5) and the place of discovery (Figures  6.3 and 6.4). Very often the annotations consist simply of the owner’s name (Figure 6.1). These marks can be of great interest in tracking down the prov­en­ance of undocumented vases or studying the history of collections and market dynamics. As we have seen, the drawings reveal a number of commonalities: the figure scene is represented in ‘flattened’ form; the vessel shape is indicated in a thumbnail sketch; the tracing is done in graphite and then redrawn, sometimes in ink; inscriptions are carefully transcribed and restorations demarcated; and details of the vase, such as size and technique, as well as the name of the owner, are recorded in handwritten annotations. Given this consistency in graphic conventions we can suppose that they go back to the instructions which Gerhard and Braun gave to the draughtsmen with a view to ensuring relatively standardized ­documentation. The nature of these directions is directly connected to the ­cre­ation of Gerhard’s Rapporto volcente (1831): indeed, one of the requests put forward is for the creation of object series and for the comparison of vases. Gerhard considered that an isolated artefact had little diagnostic value by itself and needed to be compared with others to be correctly analysed.47 For this purpose,   On the technique and reception of hidden restorations, see Bourgeois 2004; Bourgeois and Balcar 2007; Chazalon 2010; Kästner 2010; Kästner and Saunders 2016; Milanese 2007; Milanese 2010. 47   Gerhard 1831: 111. 46

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F igure 6.5.  Drawing from the Gerhard’scher Apparat showing an Attic black-­figure amphora attributed to the Painter of Berlin 1686, 540–530 bc, now in Taunton, Somerset County Museum (BAPD 320388). After Gerhard’scher Apparat XII, 134. Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz.

the production of standardized illustrations was of prime importance. Later studies on Greek vases developed in this direction, as is shown by a number of publications.48

DR AUGH TSM EN A N D T H E N ET WOR K OF R EL AT IONSH I PS

Although most of the drawings are anonymous, we know the names of some draughtsmen thanks to infrequent signatures on the drawings and the letters by

  Walter 2008; however, I disagree with the author’s claim that Adolf Furtwängler was the first scholar to insist on this point. 48

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Gerhard and Braun mentioning Carlo Ruspi, Apolloni, Attico Belloy, Alessandro Depoletti, Camilli, Corazzini, Russo, and Rudolfo Freytag—­names of artists now mostly forgotten. The letters provide little additional information about links between the draughtsmen and collectors or dealers.49 Before a vase could be drawn, authorizations had to be sought. In this process the personal connections of the draughtsmen could be exceedingly important. Moreover, the links between scholars, dealers, restorers, and collectors were much more fluid in nineteenth-­century Rome than today’s stricter division between research and trade. Relationships between scholars and dealers were often close. The former were important figures in the antiquities market,50 while the latter were received as members of the Instituto, which increased their ­status.51 The motivations of these collaborations were multifarious, including the disinterested dissemination of scientific findings, the desire for social and intellectual recognition, the academic and economic valorization of scholarly work through its publication, and so on. Gerhard and Braun themselves often assumed the role of agents. Draughtsmen were often chosen because of established relationships: for instance, some dealers had their own draughtsmen, such as Francesco Depoletti employing his son Alessandro, or a preferred one, like the Campanari family and Baseggio, who tended to work with Apolloni and Belloy, respectively.52 Some collectors also had their stylistic penchant, as is clear from the regular employment of Belloy by Durand and Apolloni by the Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen and Campana.53 From letters we also know that Depoletti systematically drew vases for his own archive,54 as occasionally did Baseggio and Edme Durand;55 but unfortunately, these drawings are now lost. In their letters, Braun and Gerhard discuss the quality of individual d ­ raughtsmen.56 57 Braun wrote, for example, that Belloy was ‘excellent’, and that Depoletti’s son drew ‘diligently and well’.58 While Braun had a difficult relationship with   Letter from E. Braun to E. Gerhard, Rome, 16 April 1835, DAI Rome.   Magnanini 2007. 51   For example, Francesco Capranesi and Vincenzo and Secondiano Campanari. See Bullettino dell’ Instituto di corrispondenza archeologica 1836, p. XII. 52   Letter from E. Gerhard to E. Braun, Berlin, 9 December 1834, DAI Rome; letter from E. Braun to E. Gerhard, Rome, 16 April 1835, DAI Rome; and letter from E. Braun to E. Gerhard, Rome, 16 April 1835, DAI Rome. 53   Letters from E. Braun to E. Gerhard, Rome, 1 January 1834, and 9 December 1834, DAI Rome; letter from E. Gerhard to E. Braun, Berlin, 9 December 1834, DAI Rome; and letter from E. Braun to E. Gerhard, Rome 30 September 1834, DAI Rome. 54   Letter from E. Braun to E. Gerhard, Rome, 2 April 1834, DAI Rome. 55   Letter from E. Braun to E. Gerhard, Rome, 8 November 1835, DAI Rome; and letter from E. Braun to E. Gerhard, Rome, 25 January 1835, DAI Rome. 56   Letters from E. Braun to E. Gerhard, Rome, 16 April 1835, 8 November 1835, DAI Rome. 57   Letter from E. Braun to E. Gerhard, Rome, 22 December 1834, DAI Rome. 58   Letter from E. Braun to E. Gerhard, Rome 16 April 1835, DAI Rome. 49 50

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Apolloni, Gerhard reminded him that his drawings were good: ‘During the long time Apolloni worked for me, he gave me a lot of good drawings, not only of vases; Thorvaldsen was also pleased with him. He now has an antiquarian eye.’59 Gerhard and Braun considered the freehand drawings of Carlo Ruspi mediocre, and the use of tracing paper was therefore a precondition for his work.60 A laudatory account of his use of tracing in an Etruscan tomb survives in the writings of Marie-­Henri Beyle (better known as Stendhal): ‘Three years ago we had the opportunity to see M[onsieur] Ruspi working on new copies of these peculiar paintings . . . We made sure that M. Ruspi added nothing to the really gorgeous drawings and the radiant colours of the originals. He even refused to correct the rendering of the hands, despite the fact that they resembled crow’s feet in the original.’61 The relationships between Gerhard, Braun, and the draughtsmen were also complicated by other factors such as financial obligations (Apolloni for instance owed money to Gerhard), the constant demand for favours in return (with Depoletti), and even such dubious requests as Braun asking Belloy to spy on Durand’s acquisitions while drawing vases at his home.62 In spite of the use of tracing and the exacting standards set by Gerhard and Braun, some unmistakable stylistic affinities exist between the drawings. Some common features in graphic execution allow us to recognize consistent groups, such as the thickness, flexibility, or schematic propensity of the line; the use of graphite, black or brown ink; the rendering of hair; and the outline of the vases. The groups distinguished on the basis of the drawings’ graphic qualities in some cases can be corroborated by the study of handwriting in the annotations. If we consider, for example, the two unsigned drawings in Figures 6.3 and 6.4, we can discern numerous similarities. The drawings were most likely made by Alessandro Depoletti, since they depict vases from the collection of his father, Francesco. Both were done in graphite and brown rather than black ink. The inked lines are flexible and fairly thick, producing soft outlines. In other sheets one can make out the two shades of brown used to render the variable thickness of the lines in the vase painting.63 In his drawings of red-­figure vases the hair is often rendered in solid brown, whereas other draughtsmen leave it reserved or use hatching. One of the most distinctive elements is how the vessels’ shapes are drawn. While the tracing of the figured painting offers limited scope for expressing a personal style, a freehand drawing of the outline of an amphora or a pelike offers considerably   Letter from E. Gerhard to E. Braun, Berlin, 9 December 1834, DAI Rome.   Letter from E. Gerhard to E. Braun, Berlin, 9 December 1834, DAI Rome. 61  Stendhal, Tombeaux de Corneto, quoted by Hus 1976: 447. 62   Letter from E.  Gerhard to E.  Braun, 9 December 1834, DAI Rome; letter from E.  Gerhard to E. Braun, Berlin, 14 April 1835, DAI Rome: ‘We shall not forget that Depoletti expects important service for all his favours’; and letter from E. Braun to E. Gerhard, Rome, 9 December 1834, DAI Rome. 63   Gerhard’scher Apparat Berlin, XXI, 47a. 59 60

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more room. The forms drawn by Alessandro Depoletti were done quickly and in an allusive manner; his aim was not to reproduce a particular vase in detail but to convey its typology. His drawings lack indications of three-­dimensional space, most notably shading on the vessels’ surface or a groundline below it. Moreover, he often neglected the non-­figural decoration or outlined its course only on one half of the vase. Finally, where annotations are included, they are written in a distinctive cursive style and are more comprehensive in content than those of other illustrators. The drawings signed by Apolloni, by contrast, are often finished in black ink, using a coarser line to reproduce the vessel’s figured dec­or­ ation, ornament, and shape, and to indicate a plain groundline (Figure 6.5). The ones by Belloy show a softer line and shading on the vessels’ surface (Figure 6.6). The possibility of attributing the drawings, using the method briefly outlined here, offers a fruitful pathway into the creation of the collection and, more broadly, into the relationships within the Roman antiquarian milieu. Little is known about the life and work of the draughtsmen hired to record the vases, a situation which this author’s ongoing archival research aims to change. Carlo Ruspi (1798–1863) was a painter of some reputation due to his copies of the Etruscan tomb paintings as well as vases (Figure 6.7).64 Alessandro Depoletti (born around 1810) was an engraver and publisher as well as an artist: his outputs include a portrait of Pope Pius IX and several books on Roman costumes and traditions.65 Like his father Francesco and his son Filippo, he was also a restorer of Greek vases.66 Girolamo Apolloni was a draughtsman and engraver whose work is known from portraits of Thorvaldsen, Vincenzo Camuccini, and the architect Gaspare Salvi.67 He too occasionally worked as a restorer of Greek vases.68 Of Attico Belloy we know very little: as a painter and draughtsman, he produced preparatory drawings for engravings, including Terremoto napoletano by Hubert Robert, and was commissioned to produce portraits, among them one of the actress Carolina Tessari.69 At the moment we have almost no information on Camilli, Corrazzini, and Angelini, as well as on Russo and the sculptor Rudolfo Freytag, who worked in Naples.70 64   Buranelli 1987. Some of Ruspi’s drawings of Greek vases are published in Kästner 1993; Colonna and Bernard 2017: 155, fig. 1; and on http://bibliotheque-­numerique.inha.fr/collection-­dessins. 65  Anon., Costumi di Roma e sue vicinanze, Rome, no date; Anon., Vedute antiche e moderne della citta di Roma e sue vicinanze, Rome, no date; Anon., Raccolta delle principale vedute di Roma e sue adiacenze, Rome, no date; Marroni 1840; Busuttil 1841. 66   Bukina, Petrakova, and Phillips 2013: 128, note 680. 67   See http://calcografica.ing.beniculturali.it. 68   Letter from E. Braun to E. Gerhard, Rome, 28 August 1838, DAI Rome. 69   See http://calcografica.ing.beniculturali.it. 70  Corrazzini might be the son of the engraver Francesco Corrazzini, featured in Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon, Vol. 21. Freytag is mentioned in Bullettino dell’Instituto di corrispondenza archeologica, Vol. 8, 1836, xix.

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F igure 6.6.  Drawing from the Gerhard’scher Apparat depicting an Attic red-­figure cup signed Epiktetos, 490–480 bc, now in New York, Metropolitan Museum 1978.11.21 (BAPD 200498). After Gerhard’scher Apparat Berlin XVI, 21.1. Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz.

DIS SEM I NAT ION A N D PU BL IC AT IONS OF T H E DR AW I NG S

There is epistolary evidence to suggest that initially Gerhard was reluctant to incur high costs for the engravings, but the Duke of Luynes persuaded him other­wise, insisting on the importance of publishing high-­quality plates.71 Some of the ­drawings were published in the Monumenti dell’Instituto di corrispondenza archeologica as outline engravings in the tradition of many archaeological publications. Gerhard also used them in his own publications, most of all in his Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder hauptsächlich etruskischen Fundorts (1840–58).72 He also circulated them generously among his peers. For example, in a letter to Braun, the a­ rchaeologist 71 72

  Letter from the Duke of Luynes to E. Gerhard, Paris, 12 February 1829, DAI Rome and supra.   Lehoux 2018.

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F igure 6.7.  Drawing by Carlo Ruspi of Attic red-­figured fragments now in Paris, Cabinet des Médailles de la Bibliothèque nationale 385, 532+, 537+, 583+ (BAPD 201702, 212626, 205063, 203925). After Gerhard’scher Apparat Berlin XXII, 01. Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz.

Jean de Witte stressed ‘the immense wealth of Mr. Gerhard’s portfolios’, ­adding, ‘He has kindly communicated to me all the drawings of his mirrors, which are unparalleled in importance for our studies.’73 Gerhard and Braun continued an eminent tradition going back to the Renaissance when they sent drawings by ­dealers and collectors from Rome to Jean de Witte for publication.74 In return he sent to Gerhard plates made in the Parisian collections by his trusted draughtsman.75 The engravings for Monumenti Inediti dell’Instituto Archeologico were ­produced by artists living in Rome or Paris. One of the major problems facing

  Letter from J. de Witte to E. Braun, Paris, 9 September 1838, DAI Rome.   See De Witte-­Lenormant, 1844–61, and his letter to E.  Braun, Paris, 2 July 1842, DAI, Rome: ‘I did not see Basseggio on his way to Paris, because at that moment I was in the countryside. I do not know whether the drawings that were meant to be made of his vases were executed. For those by Feoli you warned me that I had to wait. But there was also a small vase to draw at Capranesi’s [residence].’ 75   See the letter from J. de Witte to E. Gerhard, Paris, 28 August 1835, DAI Rome: ‘The tracings of M. Beugnot’s vases are in my portfolios; I offer them to the Direction, on payment I could send them to Berlin for the delegation.’ Letter from J. de Witte to E. Gerhard, Paris, 8 February 1835, DAI Rome: ‘I send you without delay the drawing of the mirrors in the cabinet Durand, the drawing of the small group of M. Rollin and the two tracings of the vases owned by M. Beugnot.’ 73 74

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the Instituto was that the best engravers were not only located in Paris rather than Rome, but were also very expensive.76 Let us consider the names involved in the two first volumes of the Monumenti Inediti, published in 1829 and 1838. While not all the engravings are signed, those which are bear the names of Ange-­ Henri-­Louis Saint-­Ange Desmaisons or Saint-­Ange, Vittore Pedretti, Quintilo Maria Apolloni, Alessandro Becchio, Borrani, or Costa. Ange-­Henri-­Louis Saint-­Ange Desmaisons (1780–c.1853) worked in Paris, a pupil of the painter Jacques-­Louis David (1748–1825) and of the architects Charles Percier (1764–1838), Alexandre-­Théodore Brongniart (1739–1813), and Antoine Vaudoyer (1756–1846).77 In addition to his employment as a draughtsman at the Sèvres factory, he executed engravings after Girodet and specialized in the depiction of antiquities, as can be seen in T. Panofka’s Musée Blacas (1830) and J.  Millingen’s Ancient Coins of Greek Cities and Kings (1831).78 His work was highly esteemed and his fees were commensurately high.79 The Italian-­Swiss Vittore Pedretti (1799–1868) seemed to have worked mainly in Paris too,80 engraving V. Camuccini’s Principes de dessin d’après Raphaël (1827–8), Neapolitan scenes, and botanical and zoological plates. The names of  these two artists feature frequently in the first volume of the Monumenti Inediti, with Saint-­Ange Desmaisons seemingly specializing in red-­figure vases (Figure 6.8) and Pedretti in black-­figure vases.81 Among the Roman engravers are Quintilio Maria Apolloni (c.1810–62).82 He made engravings after the works of Rubens, Poussin, Corregio, and Fra Angelico and finished portraits of Palladio, Galileo, and eminent figures of the Catholic church. Alessandro Becchio was a member of the Instituto di corrispondenza archeologica.83 We know his work only through books, such as I freschi delle Loggie vaticane dipinti da Raffaele Sanzio (1840), for which he collaborated with a certain Camilli, possibly the draughtsman employed in producing the Gerhard’scher Apparat.84 The en­gravers Borrani and A. Costa remain otherwise unknown.   A drawing in Rome cost between 0.75 and 1.50 Papal crowns (letters from E. Braun to E. Gerhard, Rome, 25 January 1835 and 3 November 1835, DAI Rome). The prices of the engravings were higher, c.15–20 Papal crowns (letter from E. Braun to E. Gerhard, Rome, 7 March 1835, DAI Rome). As a comparison, a worker’s daily wage on an excavation was around 0.75 Papal scudi. 77 78   Bénézit 1999, Vol. 12.   Gabet 1831: 619–20. 79   Letter from T. Panofka to J. de Witte, Bonn, 11 August 1834, Paris, Institut de France, Ms 2247 (1), fols. 144–5. 80   Bénézit 1999, Vol. 10. 81   Monumenti Inediti dell’Instituto di corrispondenza archeologica, Vol. I, pls IX, X, XI, XX, XXIII, XXIV, XXXVII, XLVI, LII, LIII (Saint-­Ange Desmaisons) and pls VIII, XXI, XXII, XXXIV, XLVII, L, LI, LIV, LV (Pedretti). The publication can be viewed online: http://arachne.uni-­ koeln.de/item/ buch/3006. 82   Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon, Vol. 4, article Apolloni. 83   Bullettino dell’Instituto di corrispondenza archeologica, Vol. 8, 1836, iv. 84   Becchio’s name is also familiar from Tosi and Becchio 1842. 76

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F igure 6.8.  Engraving of an Athenian red-­figure cup showing the introduction of Herakles on Mount Olympos. Signed by Sosias as potter, c.500 bc. From Vulci. Berlin, Antikensammlung, Berlin, Schloss Charlottenburg, F2278 (BAPD 200108). After Monumenti Inediti dell’Instituto di corrispondenza archeologica I, pl. 24, 1835.

In Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder, the plates are coloured, as in the publication of the first Hamilton collection.85 They are not engravings on copper plates but cheaper lithographs produced in Berlin under Gerhard’s supervision. Even if the scale is often reduced, the plates are generally very close to the drawings.86 For example, on the plate in Figure 6.9 the profile of Herakles and the contours of the shields are represented according to a flattened transcription 85

  D’Hancarville 1768–80.

86

  Lehoux 2015: 581–5.

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F igure 6.9.  Colour lithograph based on the drawings shown in Figures 6.1 and 6.2. After Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder II, pl. CXXI, 2.

of the image and reproduced a second time in light outlines to indicate their place on the convex surface of the vase. Provided that the graphic conventions are properly understood, the composite image offers a very accurate representation of its subject, just as Gerhard had intended. The collection of thousands of drawings assembled by Gerhard was the result, as I have shown, of a colossal project which required the collaboration of numerous draughtsmen and complex diplomatic relationships in order to ensure the consistency in imaging technologies that satisfied the scientific ambitions of contemporary archaeologists. It played an important role in the new definition of archaeology as a specialist discipline as envisaged by Gerhard and provided for

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years to come a useful instrument for the academic study of Greek vase painting, as is evidenced for instance by Beazley’s attribution of several works on the basis of illustrations deriving from Gerhard’s project. Moreover, as I hope to have shown, the Apparat still holds many opportunities as an exceptional source for the study of archaeology as a science of images.

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R össler , D. 2012. ‘Gerhard, Eduard’, in P.  Kuhlmann, H.  Schneider, H.  Cancik, M.  Landfester, and H.  Schneider (eds), Der neue Pauly—­ Supplemente, Vol. 6: Geschichte der Altertumswissenschaften. Biographisches Lexikon (Stuttgart: Metzler), 452–5. R ouet , P. 1995. ‘Aux origines de la céramologie grecque: l’étude des vases attiques avant Beazley’, Histoire de l’art 29/30: 3–12. S arti , S. 2001. Giovanni Pietro Campana: The Man and His Collection (Oxford: Archaeopress). S chmidt , H., and P. G. S chmidt . 2010. Emil Braun, ‘ein Mann der edelsten Begabung von Herz und Geist’ Archäologe, Kunstagent, Fabrikant und homöopathischer Arzt (Leipzig: Lindenau-Museum Altenburg). S chnapp , A. 1993. La conquête du passé: Aux origines de l’archéologie (Paris: Éditions Carré). S chnapp , A. 2004. ‘Eduard Gerhard: Founder of Classical Archaeology?’ Modernism/ Modernity 11: 169–171. S türmer , V. 1997. ‘Eduard Gerhards “Archäologischer Lehrapparat” ’, in H.  Wrede (ed.), Dem Archäologen Eduard Gerhard (1795–1867) zu seinem 200. Geburtstag (Arenhövel: Berlin), 42–6. S ymmons , S. 1984. Flaxman and Europe: The Outline Illustrations and Their Influence (New York; London: Garland). T osi , F. M., and A. B ecchio . 1842. Raccolta di monumenti sacri e sepolcrali sculpiti in Roma nei secoli XV. e XVI (Rome: Presso l’editore). V ollkommer , R. 2007. ‘Des planches en couleurs au dessin au trait: Sur la popularisation des vases grecs aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles par Sir William Hamilton, Josiah Wedgwood, John Flaxman, Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein et Bertel Thorvaldsen’, in P. Rouillard and P. Cabrera Bonet (eds), El vaso griego en el arte europeo de los siglos XVIII y XIX: Actas del coloquio internacional celebrado en el Museo Arqueológico Nacional y en la Casa de Velázquez, Madrid, 14 y 15 de febrero de 2005 (Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura), 125–40. W alter , C. 2007. ‘Le dessin “scientifique” des vases grecs au service de l’attribution’, Perspective 1: 59–67. W alter , C. 2008. ‘Towards a More “Scientific” Archaeological Tool: The Accurate Drawing of Greek Vases of the Nineteenth and the First Half of the Twentieth Centuries’, in N.  Schlanger and J.  Nordbladh (eds), Archives, Ancestors, Practices: Archaeology in the Light of its History (Oxford: Berghahn Books), 179–90. W rede , H. (ed.). 1997. Dem Archäologen Eduard Gerhard (1795–1867) zu seinem 200. Geburtstag (Berlin: Arenhövel). Z immer , J. 2012. ‘Hirt, Aloys’, in P. Kuhlmann, H. Schneider, H. Cancik, M. Landfester, and H.  Schneider (eds), Der neue Pauly—­ Supplemente, Vol 6: Geschichte der Altertumswissenschaften. Biographisches Lexikon (Stuttgart: Metzler), 579–81.

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Volume and Scale Adolf Furtwängler and Karl Reichhold’s Hervorragende Vasenbilder and the Study of Visual Narrative on Late Fifth-­Century Vases Katharina Lorenz

This paper explores how practices of vase illustration as introduced in the first volume of Adolf Furtwängler and Karl Reichhold’s Hervorragende Vasenbilder of 1904 were influenced by and have in turn impacted the study of ancient visual narrative. To do this I focus on two vases from Furtwängler–­Reichhold’s section FR V,1 ‘Attische Vasen des reichen Stiles der Epoche des peloponnesischen Krieges’ [Attic vases of the ornate style from the period of the Peloponnesian War], by the Meidias Painter and his circle from the later fifth century bc. These two Meidian vessels were published at a time which saw significant developments in the study of narrative in ancient visual art. In 1881 Carl Robert laid the foundation for the study of pictorial narrative on Greek pots with his Bild und Lied. Robert’s book was concerned with visual representations of Greek myth. He assessed these pictures in close connection to ancient literary versions of myth, based on the assumption that both media were underpinned by a collective narrative knowledge.2 He used his interest in iconographic elements as a basis for distinguishing three different narrative strategies, which he described 1   This section comprises 8 per cent of all pots featured in the series: in Volume I this section featured five out of a total of forty-­five pieces; in Volume II, two out of fifty-­seven pieces; in Volume III, eleven out of fifty-­one pieces (where the section is renamed ‘nachklassisch’, or: post-­classical). 2   Robert 1881. He further developed some aspects of this approach in his Archäologische Hermeneutik (Robert 1919). On the historiography of studying visual narrative on Greek vases, see Stansbury-­ O’Donnell 1999: 1–17.

Katharina Lorenz, Volume and Scale: Adolf Furtwängler and Karl Reichhold’s Hervorragende Vasenbilder and the Study of Visual Narrative on Late Fifth-­Century Vases In: Drawing the Greek Vase. Edited by: Caspar Meyer and Alexia Petsalis-­Diomidis, Oxford University Press. © Caspar Meyer and Alexia Petsalis-­Diomidis 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192856128.003.0007

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as ‘complete’ (kompletives Verfahren), ‘situational’ (Situationsbilder), and ‘cyclical’ (Bilderzyklen, or Chroniken-­Stil). Robert’s study triggered a wider interest in the mechanisms of pictorial storytelling, specifically in the way that events were distributed across multiple pictures or compressed into a single pictorial space or narrative time. In his 1895 Wiener Genesis, Franz Wickhoff explored visual narrative to track the artistic developments leading from Greek to Roman art. He thereby appropriated the category ‘narrative’ as a component of artistic form with lasting effect:3 in his 1947 Illuminations in Roll and Codex Kurt Weitzmann was still thinking within the framework of these strategies and the relationship of time and space in visual representations as a means to unlock visual narrative.4 In approaching the Meidian vessels from a historiographical perspective, this paper seeks to forge an understanding of the way in which different methods of illustration of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries emphasized particular aspects of the vase paintings, how they alluded to the materiality of the vessels as providing a ‘canvas’ for the depictions, and how they fed into scholarly engagement with the narratives on display.

T H E M EI DI A S PA I N T ER A N D H IS CI RCL E

The hydria in London features the potter’s signature from which the painter and his circle were named: ‘ΜΕΙΔΙΑΣ ΕΠΟΙΗΣΕΝ’, ‘Meidias made it’ (Figure 7.1).5 William Hamilton acquired the pot in 1764 and sold it in 1772 to the British Museum as part of his first collection of vases. The hydria in Karlsruhe was dis­covered in 1835 as part of tomb 152 in the necropolis of the South Italian town of Ruvo (Figure 7.2).6 It was attributed to the circle of the Meidias Painter on stylistic grounds.7 This style is characterized by ornate rendering known in 4   Wickhoff and Hartel 1895.   Weitzmann 1947.   Red-­figure hydria, London, British Museum E224. Meidias Painter, c.420 bc. CVA London, British Museum 6: 6–7, pls 91–2; ARV 2 1313.5, 1690; Para 477; Add2 361; Burn 1987: 15–25, pls 1–9; Camponetti 2007. The Meidias Painter was first identified by Eduard Gerhard (Gerhard 1839) and received significant attention thereafter: ARV 831–3; ARV 2 1312–13; FR i: 38–46; Nicole 1908; Ducati 1909; Beazley 1925: 459–50; Hahland 1930; Becatti 1947: esp. 12–3; Real 1973: 57–71; Burn 1987; Couëlle 1998. See Tugusheva 2009 and Kalkanis 2013 for the most recent assessments. 6   Montanaro 2007: 639–50. For an overview of the site of Ruvo and the history of its exploration, see Gadaleta 2002. On the necropolis, see Montanaro 2007, esp. 75–90. 7   Red-­figure hydria, Karlsruhe, Badisches Landesmuseum b36; from Ruvo. Painter of the Karlsruhe Paris, c.420 bc. ARV2 1315,1 and 1690; Para 477; Add2 180; CVA Karlsruhe 1: pls 22.4, 23, 24.1–2; Creuzer 1839, esp. 29–46; Nicole 1908: 65–9; Real 1973: 66–8; Burn 1987: 65–70, C1; LIMC VII 1994: s.v. Paridis Iuridicum no. 50; Borg 2002: 145. For the inscriptions: Immerwahr 1990: 117 no. 809. 3 5

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F igure 7.1.  The London hydria of the Meidias Painter. London, British Museum E224. Photograph courtesy of the British Museum.

Athenian art from works from the 430s bc, such as the sculptures of the east pediment of the Parthenon and, to a lesser extent, of the frieze of the Temple of Athena Nike: the garments fall in sharp-­ridged, sweeping folds or form rubbery bulges, while male bodies have a squat frame but otherwise lean features. The themes depicted on the London hydria comprise the abduction of the Leucippides by the Dioscouri in the upper field and Herakles in the Garden of the Hesperides alongside Attic eponymous heroes in the frieze below. On the Karlsruhe hydria, the Judgement of Paris is shown in the upper field and a Dionysian thiasus alongside groups of seated women in the lower frieze. In the depiction of these themes, both vessels employ a type of design characteristic of the Meidian circle, marking a departure from the compositional patterns of earl­ ier hydriae. In the figure frieze running around the lower part of the vessel, the figures share the same ground line. In contrast, the upper part of the vessel between the handles is occupied by a panoramic picture field in which the figures are freely arranged on different ground lines. This design requires a flexible approach from its viewers as they negotiate the different parts of the vessel.

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F igure 7.2.  The Karlsruhe hydria. Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe B36. Courtesy of the Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe. Photograph: Thomas Goldschmidt.

F U RT WÄ NGL ER–­R EICH HOL D’S HERVOR R AGENDE VASENBILDER

The Hervorragende Vasenbilder was published in three volumes between 1904 and 1932.8 The high reputation of this publication rests on its detailed engagement with the vessels; this was masterminded by Adolf Furtwängler alongside its lavish drawings executed by Karl Reichhold, who also supplied a technical appendix for each vessel. Furtwängler outlined his priorities for the study of Greek vases in the preface to his 1885 catalogue of the Berlin Antiquarium vase collection: ‘As the main principle of categorization, I have concentrated on the technique and the tectonic character of the vases, that is, on their decoration overall. I am convinced that by doing so—­by closely monitoring these characteristics—­one

  FR i–­iii. The format lived on past Furtwängler’s death in 1907.

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might acquire the most reliable means of distinguishing between individual workshops and their historical development.’9 Thus, the Hervorragende Vasenbilder aimed for a historical overview of Greek painted pottery—­specifically Athenian red-­figure vase painting—­by facilitating an experience akin to moving through a sequence of museum galleries.10 The catalogues championed close stylistic analysis, including an analysis of the ­different workshops and ‘hands’ that had created the vessels.11 The individual entries went well beyond the descriptions found in earlier publications and instead offered a critical historiography of the scholarly treatment of the individual pots alongside an iconographic assessment.

T H E L ON DON H Y DR I A I N F U RT WÄ NGL ER–­R EICH HOL D

In describing the features of the London hydria, Furtwängler dwelt on the potter’s signature and recapitulated the interpretations of the vessel by past scholars,12 highlighting in particular the appreciation shown by Johann Joachim Winckelmann.13 After noting Winckelmann’s praise, Furtwängler commended the quality of drawing, remarking how earlier illustrations had failed to capture this:14 ‘All illustrations to this day have been based on the earliest publication by d’Hancarville: a despicable caricature of the vase, failing to document any of its actual beauty.’

  Furtwängler 1885: VI. German original: ‘Als Haupt-­Einteilungsprinzip wurde hier die Technik und der tektonische Charakter der Vase, d.h. ihre Dekoration überall durchgeführt, indem ich der Überzeugung war, dass man auf diese Weise, durch genaue Beobachtung jener Eigenschaften am sichersten dazu gelange, die Fabriken zu unterscheiden und deren historische Entwicklung zu erkennen.’ Furtwängler had a similar aim in his publication of ancient gemstones: Furtwängler 1900. 10   Steinhart 2014, esp. 149–53. From 1894 Furtwängler held the chair of Classical Archaeology at Munich; the publication hence had a focus on the Munich vase collection: of the 153 pieces presented across the three volumes, fifty-­four belong to the Munich collection; the collections of the British Museum and the Berlin Antikensammlungen (where Furtwängler had been assistant director) were the second most prominent, each featured with twenty-­ four pieces. For Furtwängler as a scholar, see Marchand 1996: 145–7; Marchand 2007: 250–5; on his approach to style cf. Marchand 1996: 105–6. 11 12   Steinhart 2014: 155–6.   FR i: 38–46 pls 8–9. 13   Cf. Kalkanis 2013: 6 no. 13. Winckelmann commented on the piece in a 1767 letter, having had a chance to examine the pot itself; see Winckelmann 1825: 449 (Vol. XI); on the relationship between Hamilton and Winckelmann with regard to the vase collection of the British ambassador to Naples, see Constantine 1993. 14  FR i: 38 no. 1; German original: ‘Die sämtlichen bisherigen Abbildungen gehen auf die älteste Publikation von D’Hancarville I, 127–30 zurück, die nur als eine abscheuliche Karikatur der Vase bezeichnet werden kann, von ihrer Schönheit auch nicht das geringste bewahrt hat.’ He continued: ‘The illustrations dependent on this are: Maisonneuve, Introd. pl. 3 [Dubois-­Maisonneuve and Millin 1808]; Inghirami, Mon. etr. 5,11,12 [Inghirami 1824]; Millin, Gal. myth. 94,385 [Millin 1811]. These illustrations leave out entirely the inscriptions that were only discovered in 1834 by E. Gerhard’s practised eye.’ 9

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Furtwängler’s interpretation of the pot took its cues from the work of Eduard Gerhard and Carl Robert.15 He connected the Meidian style with the works of Phidias and Alkamenes and dated it to the 430s–420s bc. Furtwängler also linked the composition to the wall paintings of Polygnotus, positing that the figures were connected to each other across a space depicted in its width and its depth, which, he argued, reflected a real understanding of perspective.16 In his discussion of the upper picture field, he dealt first with the central element of its composition, the cult statue, then with the figures of Aphrodite sitting at the altar and Peitho running away from it to the right, and finally with the abduction scene.17 In continuation Furtwängler offered an assessment of what he called ‘the second picture’ of the vessel, that is, the lower frieze. Breaking with earlier interpretations, he argued that all the figures in the lower frieze were part of the same scene, demonstrating how the myth of the Argonauts and themes of Attic heritage were intermingled here.18 Reichhold’s drawings of the vessel reflect Furtwängler’s description and interpretation. Plate 8 provides a full-­frontal view of the hydria’s decoration in an innovative fashion (Figure  7.3). The decorated surface of the vase has been ‘unfolded’ into three segments across the plate, its effect not unlike that of a stretched-­out animal skin, or a ‘flayed’ vase. This arrangement—­with the cha­riots above, the figures around the altar in the centre, and the scene in the Garden of the Hesperides below—­emphasizes the panoramic quality of the decoration. In a passage on the technique of the vase, Reichhold claimed that this was the only possible way of illustrating the vase given the hydria’s shape.19 But closer inspection of the plate reveals that it is not a mathematically correct rendering of the decoration. Reichhold documented the scenes as Furtwängler had interpreted them: where the latter identified individual action units, the former separated them out in the drawing, for example, in the separation of the chariots from the other figures of the upper picture field. This threw into sharp relief the dynamic verve of the composition and its treatment of perspective, on which Furtwängler had elaborated in the text.20   On Gerhard, see below The Karlsruhe Hydria in Furtwängler–­Reichhold.   FR i: 39. This approach differed from Robert’s treatment insofar as he had focussed on the shared iconography of individual figure groups in the oeuvre of Polygnotus and the Meidias Painter rather than the two artists’ respective treatment of space (Robert 1895: 53–6, 59, 60, 71–4). 17   FR i: 41–3. 18   FR i: 43–4. Cf. Smith 1892: 120, who understood the two scenes on the London hydria to be inspired by the two paintings in the Sanctuary of the Dioscouri by Polygnotus and Mikon as mentioned by Pausanias (1.18.1), showing respectively the marriage of the Leucippides and Iason in Colchis. 19   FR i: 45: ‘The pronounced curvature of the vase’s belly did not allow for any other arrangement but the one offered in the plate.’ His later treatment of the Karlsruhe hydria in fact challenged this claim; see below The Karlsruhe Hydria in Furtwängler–­Reichhold. 20   FR i: 38–9. 15 16

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F igure 7.3.  The London hydria in FR i, pl. 8. Reproduction: Antonia Weisse.

Conversely, Reichhold divided the lower frieze into two sections—­the front on Plate 8, the back on Plate 9—despite Furtwängler’s argument that this frieze depicted one and not multiple scenes. Reichhold had used this template of front and back for depicting friezes on the exteriors of cups. But elsewhere he had employed other sophisticated ways of illustrating a frieze decoration in a ­continuous manner, such as the ‘unpeeling’ of a frieze from its vessel, for example in the illustration of the Duris psykter in London (Figure  7.4).21 Reichhold’s illustration of the frieze of the London hydria therefore enforced a separation of the two parts of the frieze, reflecting previous interpretations and visually working against Furtwängler’s text. Tracing the history of engagement with the London hydria from the pot’s first appearance in William Hamilton’s collection in 1764 until Eduard Gerhard’s 1839 discussion,22 Emmanouil Kalkanis has demonstrated how the scholarly approach towards the vessel changed from an aesthetics-­focussed antiquarian

  The Duris psykter in London, FR i: 246–8 pl. 48. Cf. the depiction of the interior frieze of the Phineus cup in Würzburg: FR i: 209–26 pl. 41. 22   On Hamilton’s collection see: Ramage 1990; Jenkins and Sloan 1996, esp. 40–64; Kalkanis 2012. 21

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F igure 7.4.  The Duris psykter in FR i, pl. 48. Reproduction: Antonia Weisse.

interest in the eighteenth century to a more critical and art historical approach in the 1830s and 1840s.23 Baron d’Hancarville’s publication of William Hamilton’s collection presented the first treatment of the London hydria.24 In addition to advertising the Hamilton collection for a potential sale, this catalogue was driven by the aim to harness Greek vase painting as a source of artistic inspiration. Josiah Wedgwood’s well-­ known designs based on the illustrations of the London hydria in d’Hancarville’s publications demonstrate the success of this venture.25 Two different depictions of the London hydria were produced for Volumes I and II. In each case, the upper picture field is presented as detached from the lower frieze.26 F.  A.  David’s engravings in Volume I give a more accurate rendering of the spatial arrangement of the scene, while Laurent Pécheux’s trompe l’oeil ­commissioned in Volume II offers a two-­dimensional reinterpretation of the upper picture field that effectively misrepresents the spatial relationship of the   Kalkanis 2013, esp. 2–3.   D’Hancarville 1766: pls 127–30; D’Hancarville 1777: 142–4, 166–8 pl. 22. 25  Kalkanis 2013: 4–11. See also Ramage 1989; Jenkins and Sloan 1996: 59–62; Coltman 2001; Coltman 2006: 65–96. 26   Coltman 2001: 3–4. 23 24

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F igure 7.5.  Eduard Gerhard’s 1839 rendering of the London hydria’s upper picture field: Gerhard 1839, pl. I. Reproduction: Antonia Weisse.

individual figures for the sake of creating a scene with perspectival depth. The two depictions share a disregard for the shape of the vessel itself, as do other derivative engravings produced in the immediate wake of d’Hancarville’s ­publications.27 Eduard Gerhard’s 1839 publication on the London hydria, Über die Vase des Midias, marked a crucial turning point towards a more academic engagement with Greek vases (Figure 7.5).28 He gleaned the identification of the maker of the pot and the content of the scene from the inscriptions.29 Furthermore, his study was the first to include drawings of different views of the whole vessel, albeit at small scale, alongside illustrations of the frieze (Figure 7.6.). However, the illustration of the main picture field was nothing more than a copy of David’s rendering in Volume I of d’Hancarville and Hamilton’s collection of engravings, the only difference being the insertion of the inscriptions. This incurred Furtwängler’s disapproval, for after having praised Gerhard for identifying the 27   These included Kirk 1804: pl. 27–9 (scenes from the lower frieze only); Dubois-­Maisonneuve and Millin 1808: 4–10 pl. 3 (the scene of the Hesperides from the lower frieze); Inghirami 1824: 72–104 pl. 11 (upper scene); pl. 12 (lower frieze in three segments). See Kalkanis 2013: 11–17; 20–5. 28   Gerhard 1839. Cf. Kalkanis 2013: 3–4, 25–9. On Gerhard’s engagement, based on his autopsy at the British Museum, see Rouet 2001: 18. On Gerhard as trailblazer of scholarship on Greek vases, see Marchand 1996: 56–60, along with the contributions in Wrede 1997, esp. Kästner 1997, Hurschmann 1997, as well as M.-A. Bernard and M. Gaifman in this volume. 29   Gerhard 1839: 1, 7–8.

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F igure 7.6.  Eduard Gerhard’s 1839 rendering of the London hydria: Gerhard 1839, pl. II. Reproduction: Antonia Weisse.

inscriptions, Furtwängler noted, ‘He [Gerhard] had the inscriptions (albeit with inaccurate indication of the shape of the letters) reinserted into a reproduction of the miserable old illustration.’30 The engravings of both David and Gerhard effectively convey the fact that none of the figures in the upper scene are located on the central axis of the pic­ tor­ial field. But Gerhard’s engraving overemphasizes the scale of the two cha­ riots, with the effect that the figures in the lower register appear squashed and somewhat secondary, most strikingly evident in the couple floating somewhere between the two registers. Reichhold’s design addresses both these aspects in a manner which suggests a purposeful desire to adjust Gerhard’s distortions. The picture field shows very clearly that the compositional centre is free of any figures. It also achieves a balanced representation of the two different registers of the upper picture field, along with the correct scale of the figures. It highlights rather than obscures the pivotal role of the floating couple in their mezzanine position as an element connecting the activities around the altar and around the cult statue. Reichhold’s choice of design for Furtwängler’s ‘second picture’, the frieze, is puzzling: while the frieze is much more effectively integrated with the vessel

  FR i: 38 no. 1. German original: ‘Diese Abbildungen lassen die Inschriften ganz weg, die erst 1839 von dem geübten Auge  E.  Gerhardt’s entdeckt wurden; er liess die Inschriften (indes mit ungenauer Angabe der Buchstabenformen) in eine Wiederholung der elenden alten Abbildung einsetzen . . .’ 30

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shape itself, the reproduction does not reflect Furtwängler’s interpretation. Reichhold’s choice may be a remnant of Gerhard’s earlier design, which was the first to depict the frieze accurately wrapped around a spherical vessel, and not as a series of individual scenes. Alternatively, the arrangement might be testimony to Furtwängler–­Reichhold’s keen interest in the material carrier, and not so much in the content of its decoration: for the illustration of the back of the vessel as provided by Reichhold underlines the physicality of the pot.

T H E K A R L SRU H E H Y DR I A I N F U RT WÄ NGL ER–­R EICH HOL D

The Karlsruhe hydria featured in the third ten-­plate instalment of the first volume.31 The lack of poetic embellishment in this entry is notable in comparison to Furtwängler’s treatment of the London hydria. Nevertheless, Furtwängler declared this vase to be the companion piece of the London hydria and highlighted the similarities in composition, decorative features, and the rendering of individual figures in form and pose. He held that the two pieces were produced in the same workshop but by different hands.32 In contrast to the London hydria entry, Furtwängler first discussed the lower part of this vessel, which he designated a ‘frieze’. With this choice of term Furtwängler highlighted what he regarded as a key difference between the Karlsruhe hydria frieze and what he had termed the ‘second picture’ of the London hydria, thereby revealing also his perception of Greek visual narrative: for Furtwängler the latter constituted a ‘picture’ because of its explicitly mythological subject matter and the use of inscriptions, while the former—­with its ‘merely’ Dionysian content and lack of labels—­was in his view nothing more than decorative embellishment.33 Turning to the ‘main picture’ above, Furtwängler identified the Trojan prince Paris as the protagonist and analysed his portrayal in close comparison to the corresponding figure on the London hydria, drawing out how the decorative patterns on Paris’ dress resemble those of Castor’s on the other vessel. He emphasized the relationship of the figures in the centre—­Paris, Hermes, Aphrodite, and the Eros next to Paris. He then went on to assess the figures’ stylistic pedigree primarily in relation to sculpture, pointing out that the Athena as depicted on the Karlsruhe hydria presupposes the existence of Phidias’ Parthenos.34 On the single plate allocated to the Karlsruhe hydria, Reichhold chose to illustrate the decoration on the front of the vase in two sections (Figure 7.7), not three as in the case of the London hydria. The frontal part of the frieze is appended to the panorama field; however, the part of the frieze on the ‘back’ of   FR i: 141–5 pl. 30.

31

32

  FR i: 143–4.

  FR i: 141–2.

33

34

  FR i: 142.

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F igure 7.7.  The Karlsruhe hydria in FR i, pl. 30. Reproduction: Antonia Weisse.

the vessel is only visible in a three-­quarter profile thumbnail image at the top of the plate. Nonetheless, in comparison to earlier illustrations Reichhold’s offers a much more accurate attempt at capturing the spatial distribution of the figures on the face of the pot, a more accurate indication of their size, and finally also a more accurate rendering of the figures and their position in the picture field. This is most obvious in the positioning of Paris not in the centre, but slightly to the left of the central axis of the picture field. In the earliest illustration, in August Emil Braun’s 1838 study, the positions and scale of individual figures had been altered to fit the picture field within a rectangular frame.35 In Friedrich Creuzer’s first full publication of the Karlsruhe hydria in 1839, the accompanying illustration of the upper picture field took account of its spherical shape and added a profile outline of the whole vessel indicating the position of the lower figure frieze (Figure 7.8).36 35   Braun (1838: 7–11 pl. I) began his discussion with an analysis of the textual sources that he had identified as inspiration for the depiction. 36   Creuzer offered an iconographic assessment of the upper picture field and of the lower frieze; he also commented on the name labels: Creuzer 1839: 29–41 (all decoration, with emphasis on the upper picture field), 56–65 (lower frieze), pl. 1 (republished in Creuzer 1847 as pls 1 and 7), where it was combined with a flattened two-­dimensional depiction of the lower frieze. He maintained that the upper picture was based on a panel painting (Creuzer 1839: 31).

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F igure 7.8.  Friedrich Creuzer’s 1839 rendering of the Karlsruhe hydria: Creuzer 1839, pl. 1. Reproduction: Johannes Kramer.

Eduard Gerhard followed Creuzer’s example in his 1845 volume on Apulian vase painting. The illustration of the spherical shape of the upper picture field in this study closely followed Creuzer’s earlier example, although it provided more detail on the landscape features and rendered the figures in a more compact arrangement (Figure  7.9). In this way Gerhard’s approach differed from his non-­spherical 1839 illustration of the London hydria and those of the two com­par­able hydriae in the 1845 volume.37 His depiction enjoyed considerable success with other scholars.38 Nevertheless, Furtwängler commented critically again on the relatively poor quality of earlier drawings of the Karlsruhe hydria—­a criticism similar to Herrmann Winnefeld’s note in his 1887 publication of the Karlsruhe vase collection (which had no illustrations).39 These criticisms were most likely triggered by the alterations characterizing Gerhard’s illustration of the vase painting. Although the outline of the picture field is spherical, two adjustments were made to generate a ‘legible’ illustration. The first concerns its scale: the figures in the lower register of the picture field 37   Red-­figure hydria by the Cadmus Painter from Vulci. Berlin, Staatliche Museen F2633 (now lost). 420/10 bc. Gerhard 1845: 31–2 pl. C; ARV 2 1187,32; Add2 341; CVA Berlin, Antiquarium 9: Beilage 16. Red-­figure hydria by the Nicias Painter, once in Cancello, from Suessula. Late fifth century bc. CVA Berlin, Antiquarium 9: 32 pl. D1; ARV 2 1334,28. 38   Gerhard 1845: 32–3 pl. D2; he did not include the profile outline of the vessel. Overbeck followed Gerhard in adopting this reproduction in his 1853 volume (Overbeck 1853: pl. XI, 1). 39   Winnefeld 1887: 63.

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F igure 7.9.  Eduard Gerhard’s 1845 rendering of the Karlsruhe hydria: Gerhard 1845, pl. D2. Reproduction: Johannes Kramer.

appear enlarged compared to the figures above, as is particularly clear in the figures of Paris and Eris. The second concerns the relative placement of the scenes: all the figures appear as if tilted upwards, altering their actual position on the vessel’s surface. Paris appears to occupy the centre of the picture field (an effect additionally enhanced because only the handle on the left side is depicted); and the sun god Helios in his chariot on the far left seems to charge along behind Aphrodite rather than above her.

T H E ST U DY OF L AT E F I F T H-­C EN T U R Y VA SE S I N T H E E A R LY T W EN T I ET H CEN T U R Y

The combined efforts of Furtwängler and Reichhold to elucidate vase paintings of the later fifth century bc helped to trigger significant scholarly activity in the first decade of the twentieth century on the Meidias Painter and his circle. Georges Nicole’s Meidias et le style fleuri dans la céramique attique appeared in 1908,40 and the following year Pericle Ducati’s doctoral thesis I vasi dipinti nello stile del ceramista Midia was published.41 Nicole followed Furtwängler in his focus on minute formal features and employed the drawings of individual figures 40

  Nicole 1908.

41

  Ducati 1909.

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to make comparisons of stylistic characteristics across the vessels of the Meidian circle. Ducati adopted Reichhold’s style for his illustration of two newly dis­covered Meidian hydriae with a comparable distribution of picture fields. He also p ­ ursued Furtwängler’s interest in the relationship of works from the Meidian circle with Polygnotan painting, particularly with regard to the rendering of pic­ tor­ ial space.42 But neither author showed interest in the possibilities of studying the spatial distribution of the figures shown in the panorama pictures, or in matters of time and space as negotiated in the works attributed to Meidias and his circle, despite the fact that Reichhold’s illustrations had made such enquiries possible for the first time. Indeed, Reichhold’s illustrations perfectly expressed the importance which Carl Robert and Franz Wickhoff originally attributed to time and space in their idea of ‘scaffolding’ visual narrative in ancient art. However, this issue did not feature in studies of the first decades of the twentieth century, such as Walter Hahland’s 1930 Vasen um Meidias, the first volume of John Beazley and Paul Jacobsthal’s series Bilder griechischer Vasen. Hahland’s study redeemed the Meidias Painter and his circle somewhat after Beazley’s 1918 volume on vases in American museums had voiced dislike of the overly ‘soft’ subject matter and style.43 Attempting to contextualize the Meidian circle in the wider stylistic developments of vase painting in the second half of the fifth century, Hahland argued,44 ‘Polygnotan painting dissolved austere compositional form and instead introduced layered figures in rolling landscapes; meanwhile, the dangers to vase painting that the imitation of Polygnotan painting might have posed were prudently avoided. However, in most vase paintings from the mid-­fifth century an inherent contradiction is noticeable: one cannot escape the impression that the vase painter was aware of a form but tried to avoid it.’ Hahland located this contra­dic­tion in the pervasive use of pseudo-­perspectival rendering, claiming that the vase painters regarded contemporary attempts to render spatial depth in wall painting as inappropriate for their genre of ‘surface art’ (‘Flächenkunst’). Hahland did not explicitly discuss the London or Karlsruhe hydriae but touched on workshop relationships between the ‘master’ Meidias and his pupils,45 which seems to imply that his interest in perspective and the vase as a material carrier  Ducati 1909: 8, 11, 12–13 figs 2–3. The two red-­figure hydriae had been found in Populonia. Florence, National Archaeological Museum inv. 81947 (ARV2 1312,2) and inv. 81948 (ARV2 1312,1). 43   Beazley 1918: 185. But note the summary of the ‘dangerous’ characteristics of the ornate style in Hahland 1930: 10–11, such as the ‘ornate clothing of female figures’. 44   Hahland 1930: 9–10. German original: ‘. . . die polygnotische Malerei bewirkte die Auflösung der strengen Kompositionsformen und brachte die neue Schichtung der Figuren im bewegten Gelände; die Gefahren aber, die für die Vasenbilder in der Nachahmung der polygnotischen Gemälde lagen, wurden mit großer Klugheit umgangen. Dennoch aber ist in den meisten Vasenbildern seit der Mitte des fünften Jahrhunderts irgendein geheimer Widerspruch spürbar: man wußte eine Form, suchte sie aber zu v­ ermeiden’. 45   Hahland 1930: 14–15. 42

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spoke to his concern with taxonomy and, ultimately, connoisseurship, not with visual narrative. Hahland’s work was aided by photographs, the new medium that had steadily replaced engravings and drawings as a means of illustration in the field of classical archaeology since the last quarter of the nineteenth century. But this increasing use of photography for the documentation of Greek vase painting did not act as a stimulus for the study of the Meidian circle’s approach to pictorial narrative. The vast storyscapes of these vessels simply did not easily lend themselves to photographic reproduction: photographs tended to cut up into individual segments the panoramic vistas that Reichhold’s plates had carefully constructed.46 Such fragmentation supported detailed scholarly engagement with individual figures, and thus the stylistic studies of the type attempted by Ducati, Nicole, and Hahland were benefited. But it could not support analysis of the complex narrative structures characterizing the vessels of the Meidian circle as Reichhold’s drawings had. Arguably as a direct result of this, the dynamic form of pictorial narrative unfolding across the expanse of the Meidian vessels, and especially the hydriae, failed to attract closer attention. Instead, the narrative content of the vessels was recast as conveying a peaceful communal co-­existence of the figures, for example in Willi Real’s 1973 study of late fifth-­century vase painting.47

CONCLUSIONS

Furtwängler and Reichhold introduced a way of illustrating the hydriae of the Meidian circle to capture what they regarded as the key characteristics of these vessels. There was a noticeable difference in the treatment of the two individual vessels in their study: Reichhold’s illustration of the London hydria emphasized the spatial dynamics of the decoration, thereby supporting Furtwängler’s discussion of the Meidias Painter’s dependency on the styles of Polygnotan painting and Phidian sculpture. In contrast, Reichhold’s depiction of the Karlsruhe hydria reflected Furtwängler’s discussion of the depicted myth by underlining the central role which the figure of Paris played in structuring the visual narrative and by reinforcing the secondary nature of the frieze.

  Although Furtwängler was an early champion of the new medium of photography for the depiction of sculpture (as is demonstrated by his 1893 Meisterwerke), he nevertheless avoided it in his work on vases. On the advent of photography in the field, see N. Dietrich in this volume. 47  Real 1973: 11: ‘The depiction of an individual moment seems to me the shared feature of this period’s vase-­paintings. These pictures no longer convey action or event but quiet existence; they document a condition, even a mood.’ This statement is followed by a detailed discussion of the placing of scenes on the Meidian vessels in comparison with earlier vase painting (see Real 1973: 57–71). 46

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Overall, Furtwängler and Reichhold embraced the archaeological object in their study, taking great pains to analyse its materiality as a carrier of decoration in both their discussions and their illustrations. Their focus on pictorial art broke in many ways with earlier scholarship on Attic vases, which had been geared towards connecting the painted scenes with ancient texts rather than analysing the intricacies of the visual evidence itself. This fresh approach to vases as ma­ter­ ial carriers of visual content was embodied in Reichhold’s method of tracing directly from the body of the vessel to ‘extract’ the figure decoration in an almost surgical way. Given Furtwängler’s keen interest in scientific documentation and classification, it is likely that he was inspired by scientific illustrations of the late nineteenth century.48 In appropriating scientific standards for classical archaeological documentation and analysis, the focus of study was directed towards aspects of the depiction that could be considered ‘objectifiable’, such as compositional arrangement and stylistic rendering. This tendency sidelined any interest in the visual means by which these vessels communicated their narrative content—­a result all the more surprising given that the focus of Reichhold’s illustrations, with the rendering of dynamic action unfolding across multiple levels, could have facilitated closer analysis of the narrative structure of these vessels within the interpretive frameworks proposed by the near-­contemporary trailblazers of pictorial narrative, Carl Robert and Franz Wickhoff. Thus, the potential of Reichhold’s illustrations to illuminate the relationship of space and time as the key driver of pictorial narrative, which transpired especially from his rendering of the Karlsruhe hydria, remained an untapped source. Instead, Furtwängler’s concern with taxonomy and questions of form and style set the tone for further studies of this type until now.49 In this way, the history of illustrating vases of the Meidian circle demonstrates how the modes of reproduction have the capacity to transform heuristic practice but require a matching intellectual drive to realize such transformation.

BI BL IOGR A PH Y B eazley , J. D. 1918. Attic Red-Figure Vases in American Museums (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). B eazley , J. D. 1925. Attische Vasenmaler (Tubingen: Mohr). B ecatti , G. 1947. Un manierista antico (Florence: Sansoni).

  Daston and Galison 2007: 161–73.   Reichhold 1919, esp. 17–26. Cf. Real 1973: 11, 57–71 and Burn 1987: 94–6 with Lorenz 2016, esp. 184–97. 48 49

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B org , B. 2002. Der Logos des Mythos: Allegorien und Personifikationen in der frühen griechischen Kunst (Munich: Wilhelm Fink). B raun , A.  E. 1838. Il giudizio di Paride: rappresentato sopra tre inediti monumenti (Paris: Didot). B urn , L. 1987. The Meidias Painter (Oxford: Clarendon Press). C amponetti , G. 2007. ‘L’hydria londinese di Meidias: mito e attualità storica ad Atene durante la guerra del Peloponneso’, in S. Angiolillo and M. Guiman (eds), Il vasaio e le sue storie: Giornata di studi sulla ceramica attica in onore di Mario Torelli per i suoi settanta anni (Cagliari: Ed. AV), 17–45. C oltman , V. 2001. ‘Sir William Hamilton’s Vase Publications: A Case Study in the Reproduction and Dissemination of Antiquity’, Journal of Design History 14: 1–16. C oltman , V. 2006. Fabricating the Antique: Neoclassicism in Britain, 1760–1800 (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press). C onstantine , D. 1993. ‘Winckelmann and Sir William Hamilton’, Oxford German Studies 22: 55–83. C ouëlle , C. 1998. ‘Dire en toutes lettres? Allusions et sous-entendus chez le Peintre de Meidias’, Metis 13: 135–58. C reuzer , F. 1839. Zur Gallerie der alten Dramatiker: Auswahl unedirter griechischer Thongefässe der Großherzoglichen Badischen Sammlung in Karlsruhe (Heidelberg: Winter). C reuzer , F. 1847. Zur Archäologie oder zur Geschichte und Erklärung der alten Kunst: Abhandlungen (Leipzig: C. W. Leske). D aston , L., and P. G alison . 2007. Objectivity (New York: Zone Books). D’H ancarville , P.-F. H. 1766–7. Antiquités étrusques, grecques et romaines tirées du cabinet de M. Hamilton envoyé extraordinaire de S. M. Britannique à la Cour de Naples (Naples: Morelli). D ubois -M aisonneuve , A., and A.  L.  M illin . 1808. Introduction l’étude des vases antiques d’argile peints vulgairement appelès étrusques (Paris: Didot). D ucati , P. 1909. I vasi dipinti nello stile del ceramista Midia (Rome: Accademia dei Lincei). F urtwängler , A. 1885. Beschreibung der Vasensammlung im Antiquarium (Berlin: W. Spemann). F urtwängler , A. 1893. Meisterwerke der griechischen Plastik: Kunstgeschichtliche Untersuchungen (Leipzig: Giesecke & Devrient). F urtwängler , A. 1900. Die antiken Gemmen: Geschichte der Steinschneidekunst im Klassischen Altertum (Leipzig: Giesecke & Devrient). G adaleta , G. 2002. La Tomba delle Danzatrici di Ruvo di Puglia (Naples: Loffredo). G erhard , E. 1839. Über die Vase des Midias (Berlin: Akademie der Wissenschaften). G erhard , E. 1845. Apulische Vasenbilder des königlichen Museums zu Berlin (Berlin: G. Reimer). H ahland , W. 1930. Vasen um Meidias (Berlin: H. Keller). H urschmann , R. 1997. ‘Eduard Gerhard als Vasenforscher’, in H. Wrede (ed.), Dem Archäologen Eduard Gerhard 1795–1867 zu seinem 200. Geburtstag (Berlin: Arenhövel), 101–6. I mmerwahr , H. R. 1990. Attic Script: A Survey (Oxford: Clarendon Press).

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I nghirami , F. 1824. Degli antichi vasi fittili sepolcrali (Fiesole: Poligrafia fiesolana). J enkins , I., and K. S loan . 1996. Vases and Volcanoes: Sir William Hamilton and His Collection (London: British Museum Press). K alkanis , E. 2012. ‘The Visual Dissemination of Sir William Hamilton’s Vases and Their Reception by Early 19th-Century Scholarship (c. 1800s–1820s)’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 75: 487–514. K alkanis , E. 2013. ‘The “Meidias” Hydria: A Visual and Textual Journey of a Greek Vase in the History of Art of Antiquity (c. 1770s–1840s)’, Journal of Art Historiography 9: 1–36. K ästner , U. 1997. ‘Eduard Gerhard und die Berliner Vasensammlung’, in H. Wrede (ed.), Dem Archäologen Eduard Gerhard 1795–1867 zu seinem 200. Geburtstag (Berlin: Arenhövel), 87–100. K irk , T. 1804. Outlines from the Figures and Compositions upon the Greek, Roman, and Etruscan Vases of the Late Sir William Hamilton (London: William Miller). L orenz , K. 2016. Ancient Mythological Images and their Interpretation: An Introduction to Iconology, Semiotics and Image Studies in Classical Art History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). M archand , S. L. 1996. Down from Olympus: Archaeology and Philhellenism in Germany, 1750–1970 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). M archand , S.  L. 2007. ‘From Antiquarian to Archaeologist? Adolf Furtwängler and the Problem of Modern Classical Archaeology’, in P. N. Miller (ed.), Momigliano and Antiquarianism: Foundations of the Modern Cultural Sciences (Toronto: University of Toronto Press), 248–85. M illin , A. L. 1811. Galerie mythologique (Paris: Soyer). M ontanaro , A.  C. 2007. Ruvo di Puglia e il suo territorio: le necropolis. I corredi funerari tra la documentazione del XIX secolo e gli scavi moderni (Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider). N icole , G. 1908. Meidias et le style fleuri dans la céramique attique (Geneva: Librairie Kuendig). O verbeck , J. 1853. Gallerie heroischer Bildwerke der alten Kunst: Die Bildwerke zum thebischen und troischen Heldenkreis (Braunschweig: Schwetschke). R amage , N. H. 1989. ‘Owed to a Grecian Urn: The Debt of Flaxman and Wedgwood to Hamilton’, Ars Ceramica 6: 8–12. R amage , N.  H. 1990. ‘Sir William Hamilton as Collector, Exporter and Dealer: The Acquisition and Dispersal of His Collections’, American Journal of Archaeology 94: 469–80. R eal , W. 1973. Studien zur Entwicklung der Vasenmalerei im ausgehenden 5. Jahrhundert v. Chr. (Munster: Aschendorff). R eichhold , K. 1919. Skizzenbuch griechischer Meister (Munich: Bruckmann A.G.). R obert , C. 1881. Bild und Lied: Archäologische Beiträge zur Geschichte der griechischen Heldensage (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung). R obert , C. 1895. Die Marathonschlacht in der Poikile und weiteres über Polygnot (Halle: Niemeyer). R obert , C. 1919. Archäologische Hermeneutik: Anleitung zur Deutung klassischer Bildwerke (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung).

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R ouet , P. 2001. Approaches to the Study of Attic Vases: Beazley and Pottier (Oxford: Oxford University Press). S mith , A.  H. 1892. A Catalogue of Sculpture in the British Museum (London: British Museum Press). S tansbury -O’D onnell , M. 1999. Pictorial Narrative in Ancient Greek Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). S teinhart , M. 2014. ‘Adolf Furtwängler, Karl Reichhold und die “Griechische Vasenmalerei”, oder: Tradition und Gestaltung eines imaginären Museums’, in S.  Schmidt and M.  Steinhart (eds), Sammeln und Erforschen: Griechische Vasen in neuzeitlichen Sammlungen (Munich: C. H. Beck), 149–59. T ugusheva , O. 2009. ‘The Meidias Painter and the Jena Painter Revisited’, in J. H. Oakley and O. Palagia (eds), Athenian Potters and Painters, Vol. 2 (Oxford: Oxbow Books), 291–6. W eitzmann , K. 1947. Illustrations in Roll and Codex: Studies in Manuscript Illumination (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). W ickhoff , F., and W.  R.  von H artel . 1895. Wiener Genesis. Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses, Suppl. Vol. 15/16 (Vienna: Albertina). W inckelmann , J. J. 1825. Sämtliche Werke (Donaueschingen: Verlage deutscher Elassika). W innefeld , H. 1887. Beschreibung der Vasensammlung in Karlsruhe (Karlsruhe: Bielefeld). W rede , H. (ed.). 1997. Dem Archäologen Eduard Gerhard 1795–1867 zu seinem 200. Geburtstag (Berlin: Arenhövel).

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8

Drawing as an Instrument of Connoisseurship J. D. Beazley and His Late Nineteenth-­Century Forerunners Athena Tsingarida

It is widely acknowledged that John Davidson Beazley (1885–1970) was a ­pivotal figure in the field of pottery studies, even though his work has been the subject of some critiques in the last few decades.1 Taking into account their ­figures’ style, along with iconography, technique, and occasionally shape, he organized Attic vases according to painters and workshops, and arguably took the discipline further than any other scholar. While Beazley was reluctant to explain in detail the method he used to identify personal styles for anonymous craftsmen, he offers some clues to how he looked at vase painting in his article entitled ‘Citharoedus’,2 widely seen as an essay in connoisseurship on an anonymous painter he later named ‘the Berlin Painter’.3 1   On Beazley’s scholarship and a response to critics of his method of defining style and identifying the work of painters who did not sign their works, see Robertson 1985: 19–30; for a recent discussion of attribution in the study of Greek vases, see Arrington 2017. I would like to thank Caspar Meyer and Alexia Petsalis-­ Diomidis for inviting me to contribute to this volume, for their patience and their constructive comments on my paper. Very special thanks are due to Donna Kurtz, who taught me about Beazley and how to look at Greek vases. It is also a great pleasure to be able to thank Susanna Sarti, Melanie Mendoca, and Nathalie Bloch for their help in different matters while I was preparing this chapter. The anonymous readers should also be acknowledged for their comments that helped to improve it. Any remaining errors are my own. Peter Stewart and Thomas Mannack welcomed me at the Beazley Archive, CARC (Oxford), and enabled me to study Beazley’s notebooks. Peter Stewart further provided photographs of Beazley’s drawings and notebooks and granted permission to reproduce them in this article. To both of them, I extend sincere thanks. 2   Beazley 1922: 70–98. 3   On the ‘Citharoedus’ as a methodological statement, see Kurtz 1985: 244–5.

Athena Tsingarida, Drawing as an Instrument of Connoisseurship: J. D. Beazley and His Late Nineteenth-­Century Forerunners In: Drawing the Greek Vase. Edited by: Caspar Meyer and Alexia Petsalis-­Diomidis, Oxford University Press. © Caspar Meyer and Alexia Petsalis-­Diomidis 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192856128.003.0008

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In this paper, Beazley gives great importance to the close observation of the rendering of the human figure. The careful comparison of one vase with a number of similar pieces enables him to distinguish a coherent personal system of forms employed by the painter, which is composed of master and minor lines that demarcate the different parts of the human body and drapery. In his list of essential elements of the artist’s style of drawing, Beazley adds the rendering of details, especially those constantly recurring ones such as the eyes, ears, and hands, for which the vase painter develops a formula he repeats almost unconsciously, like a written signature. Next to these main features, he further takes into account composition, iconography, decorative details such as floral or geometric patterns, and occasionally the shapes of the vases. Although Beazley did not mention the names of Giovanni Morelli (1816–91) and Bernard Berenson (1865–1959) in print, scholars have pointed out the influence of both figures in his quest to recognize individual styles of hitherto unknown vase painters.4 The creation of a scientific method of analysis that legitimizes the practice of connoisseurship was the landmark achievement of these three scholars. Morelli and Berenson were deeply influenced by the methods applied in the natural sciences, where autopsy was combined with meticulous description and clinical observation. The careful scrutiny of the way an artist draws figures was considered to offer a scientific basis for identifying personal styles. There is no doubt that the technique used for vase painting, which is drawing rather than painting, lends itself very well to the recognition of different hands by Morellian methods. The importance attributed to the line therefore makes the accurate reproduction of the figured decoration an essential instrument for the understanding and recognition of the vase painter’s style. In her publications on Beazley’s method,5 Donna Kurtz has previously discussed the role of accurate drawings and tracings from vases in Beazley’s attributions and recognized the influence of Adolf Furtwängler’s Die griechische Vasenmalerei (1904–32) and the illustrations of Karl Reichhold.6 Yet, little attention has been paid so far to the role of drawing in earlier research undertaken by other late nineteenth-­century scholars such as Wilhelm Klein (1850–1924), Paul Hartwig (1859–1919), and Friedrich Hauser (1859–1917),7 despite the fact that Beazley had himself acknowledged his debt to them.8

  On Beazley’s approach, see Kurtz 1985: 237–50; Rouet 2001. On the study of Beazley as a kind of social history of art, see Stewart 2018: 53–5. For a recent discussion of attribution in the study of Greek vases, see Arrington 2017. 5 6   Kurtz 1983; Kurtz 1985: 237–50.   FR (i–­iii). 7   Walter 2007: 59–63; Walter 2008: 179–90; on Hartwig and Hauser, see Tsingarida 2014: 115–22. 8   For Hartwig and Hauser, see Beazley 1910: 38–9; Hauser and Beazley 1918: 3, note 1. For some earlier comments: Robertson 1976: 31; Rouet 2001: 27–36. 4

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This chapter therefore aims to contextualize the importance Beazley gave to the accurate drawing of figure decoration, which he used as a primary tool in his method of identifying individual painters’ style. On the one hand, it discusses Beazley’s distinctive method of drawing the black relief and brown dilute lines of Attic vase painting in the light of the method introduced by his nineteenth-­ century forerunners in connoisseurship, such as Hartwig and Hauser. Special emphasis is laid on the drawing methods developed by these German scholars, their source of inspiration, and their possible influence on the young Beazley. On the other hand, the chapter looks further into the influence of the academic environment in Oxford and beyond on Beazley’s use of drawing, at a time when classical archaeology was gradually coming to be perceived as a science as it introduced its own tools and methods of investigation and registration. The chapter sheds new light on the role played by the growing importance in earlier and contemporary scholarship of accurate documentation and reproduction of archaeological objects, including Greek vases, which become a prime source of knowledge and classification. Special emphasis is laid on the contributions of Frederick Anderson and Emile Gilliéron père (1850–1924), both draughtsmen who reproduced vase paintings for several leading scholars of the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, among them Hartwig, Percy Gardner (1846–1937), Jane Harrison (1850–1928), as well as Beazley.9 The discussion also examines Beazley’s own steps towards developing his own drawings. In the exploration of the role of drawings in Beazley’s method, s­ cholars have largely focused on the ‘finished’ drawings of red-­figure vase paintings: that is, ‘tracings worked up freehand’, in Beazley’s own words.10 The last part of this chapter therefore examines an alternative selection of drawings for the light they shed on Beazley’s work and which have received little scholarly attention so far: Beazley’s freehand sketches of anatomical parts and details from figures, and his sketches of pottery fragments.

T H E USE OF DR AW I NG I N T H E ST U DY OF VA SE PA I N T ER S’ ST Y L E S BEFOR E BE A ZL E Y

Klein’s two early works, devoted to vases with ‘Masters’ signatures and to the red-­figure painter Euphronios,11 appeared to many of his contemporaries as a bold attempt to reveal the personalities of vase painters and to achieve an overall

  Anderson’s work at the British Museum is also discussed by K. Morton in this volume.   Especially Kurtz 1983; Kurtz 1985; Rouet 2001. 11   Klein 1882 (1st ed.) and 1887 (2nd ed.); Klein 1886 (2nd ed.). 9

10

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vision of red-­figure pottery.12 Yet, Klein’s study on Euphronios was sharply criticized by Furtwängler, who judged it to be a mere attempt to define ‘the phantom of the painter’.13 Klein arguably failed to fully appreciate the distinction between signatures accompanied by the verb epoiesen (made it) and those with egrapsen (drew it) and its implications for the organization of craft production. It is certainly significant that he did not include many drawings in these two publications. In the first (1882) and second (1887) editions of his Meistersignaturen, figure drawings of the vases are completely absent, and illustrations are only referred to at the end of each vase entry, frequently using Eduard Gerhard’s study collection of drawings or the Wiener Vorlegeblätter.14 In the second edition of his study Euphronios (1886), Klein introduced sixty-­six small-­scale figures (Figure 8.1) and acknowledged that they were only modest add­itions to provide illustrations of vases still missing from the discontinued Wiener Vorlegeblätter.15 This minimal use of drawings reflects the fact that Klein con­tinued to prioritize inscriptions in the form of signatures, letter types, and, later, ‘kalos’ names over the close analysis of figure decoration in order to understand the organization of the Athenian Kerameikos. Only in some exceptional cases did he attempt to attribute unsigned pieces to painters already known from their signatures. Ten years after Klein’s first publication, Hartwig’s Die griechischen Meisterschalen (1893) would provide a decisive stimulus towards the practice of attribution.16 In this ambitious work, Hartwig attempted to identify individual vase painters

F igure 8.1.  Drawing of Herakles and Antaios. Red-­figure calyx krater. Paris, Musée du Louvre G103 (after Klein 1886, 118). 12   For positive opinions of Klein’s work expressed by contemporary scholars (among them A. Michaelis and P. Gardner), see Rouet 2001: 29. 13   FR (ii): 11 quoted by Rouet 2001: 29. 14 15   On the Gerhard’sche Apparat, see M.-A. Bernard’s chapter in this volume.   Klein 1886: v. 16   Cook 1997: 306; von Bothmer 1987: 197–8; and, most recently, Steinhart 2014: 149–59.

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who had not signed their work and even proposed conventional names for them, as Beazley would later do. This approach lays emphasis on the understanding of personal style. It relies heavily on clinical observation of the lines used in rendering anatomy and clothing; these lines took on a diagnostic role, comparable to that of handwriting, in the identification of individual hands. Under these circumstances, the drawings that reproduce the painter’s work need to transfer the lines reliably onto paper since they become important tools in the attribution process. It is therefore no coincidence that in the preface of his book Hartwig outlined the seminal role played by the plates in his study, explaining his graphic preferences and the qualities he expected from these reproductions.17 Not only did he name the different draughtsmen who executed the plates, he also emphasized the importance of the contours of the vase and the outline and inner lines of the figure drawings. He further focused on the scale of the reproductions. Hartwig recommended life- or half-­size reproduction of the figure decoration since he considered the relative scale of the image on a vase to be one of the distinctive features of the painter’s style and personality. Not all plates were executed using the same method or level of care, as different draughtsmen contributed to the volume. Some set the figures on a black background without a sharp contrast between the rendering of the main and secondary inner details (Figure 8.2), while others favoured outline figures on a light background with details reproduced in lighter tones. Notwithstanding these differences, most of the drawings display the inner details of anatomical features and drapery. The decision to offer such detailed visual information about the painters’ work was innovative and should be seen as an important contribution to the discipline’s developing understanding of the draughtsmanship of Attic vase painters. Despite several shortcomings identified in contemporary reviews,18 Die griechischen Meisterschalen was a pioneering work both in defining the principles of connoisseurial attribution and in its use of illustrations in aiding the process of visual examination. As a result of archival research, it has been possible to identify the plates drawn by Anderson, who is known as the draughtsman of the British Museum, among the illustrators contributing to Hartwig’s volume, even though his plates are unsigned or not individually attributed to him in the text. Alphonse van Branteghem (1844–1911), whose collection provided a significant proportion of the vases studied in Meisterschalen,19 mentions Anderson drawing vases at his   Hartwig 1893: vi–­vii.   For a critique of the method of attribution applied by Hartwig and doubts about the existence of several painters whom he identified, see Pottier 1902: 32–3; Furtwängler 1894: cols 105–14, 141–7. 19   Special thanks are addressed by Hartwig to the collector for providing drawings of his vases: Hartwig 1893: vi. Letters of van Branteghem mention the drawings specially ordered for the publication: Weimar, Archives Fröhner GSA 107/227 (5): 11.11.1888; 6.12.1888. 17 18

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F igure 8.2.  Drawing of warriors on black background. Exterior of a red-­figure cup. Paris Musée du Louvre G25 (after Hartwig 1893, pl. IX).

residence in several letters.20 My research enabled me to identify one of the drawings as of the red-­figure cup signed Euphronios epoiesen, now in Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts (Figure 8.3).21 The plates render inner anatomical features consistently in two different pencilled lines, one black and the other lighter. They an­tici­ pate practices that would be systematically developed by Reichhold at the turn of the century and by Beazley, with whom Anderson would later collaborate. These plates would be used to illustrate the aforementioned cup not only in Hartwig’s volume but also in the later catalogue of the Boston collection by L. D. Caskey, published in close collaboration with Beazley.22 The importance of master and minor lines in Beazley’s method of attribution has generally been put down to the influence of the works of Hartwig and of Furtwängler and Reichhold.23 Yet, they owed much of their significance as a diagnostic tool to Hauser, whose importance was acknowledged by Beazley.24   Weimar, Archives Fröhner GSA 107/227 (5): 11.11.1888; GSA 107/227 (6): 26.10.1889.   Hartwig 1893: pls 47 and 48.1; ARV 2 325.76; 313; 1604; BAPD 203223. Boston MFA 95.27. 22 23   Caskey and Beazley 1931–63, Vol. 2, pl. 42.   Kurtz 1985: 238–40. 24   Beazley 1918: 3, note 1. 20 21

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F igure 8.3.  Drawing by F. Anderson showing a komos in outline on a black background (detail). Exterior of a red-­figure cup. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 95.27 (after Hartwig 1893, pl. XLVII).

Hauser was active in the field of connoisseurship from the late nineteenth ­century; he published several articles under his name and later contributed to the monumental series by Furtwängler and Reichhold, for which he assumed responsibility after Furtwängler’s death in 1907. As noted earlier on in this chapter, Hartwig failed to apply comprehensively the system of double lines throughout the illustrations in Meisterschalen. Indeed, it was Hauser who first emphasized the importance of these features in the analysis of a painter’s style. In his studies on connoisseurship published in the 1890s, he distinguished the meaning of the potter’s signature in epoiesen from that of the painter’s in egrapsen and focused on the figures’ interior details in order to define the individual style of unnamed vase painters. In an 1895 article on three red-­figure cups from the Munich collection, he provides closely observed descriptions of the variety of lines and strokes used by the painter to render such anatomical details as the ears and hands, apply relief lines, and dilute slip and added colours, and he complements them with faithful illustrations.25 An accomplished draughtsman himself, he drew most of the figures reproduced in his articles (Figure 8.4); unlike Hartwig, he did not rely on drawings done by others. He introduced the double line and variously used a black or white background, depending on whether he wanted to draw attention to the contour lines outlining figures. This preference   Hauser 1895: 153–5.

25

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F igure 8.4.  Drawing by F. Hauser showing the exterior of a red-­figure eye-­cup with figures fighting and dancing. Munich, Antikensammlung 2587 (after Harrison 1895, plate IV).

for showing the boundary line of the figure would later be adopted in the majority of Beazley’s drawings.26

FROM T H E M AT ER I A L I T Y OF T H E A RCH A EOL OGIC A L OBJ ECT TO T H E I N DI V I DUA L PA I N T ER’S ST Y L E: T R ACI NG M A ST ER A N D M I NOR L I N E S FROM VA SE S A N D PHOTOGR A PHS

In his article ‘Citharoedus’, Beazley describes the features that allowed him to attribute figures from different vases to the same painter: ‘It cannot be maintained   Kurtz 1983: 4. On Beazley’s experiment in his first published drawings (Beazley 1911: pls XV–­XVI) with the black background originally introduced by Reichhold and his rationale for preferring the light background, see Kurtz 1985: 249. 26

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that the points in which these figures resemble one another or one the rest are trifling, few or restricted to one part of the figure. They comprise both the master lines which in archaic art demarcate the several parts of the body and of the drapery, and the minor lines which subdivide or diversify the areas thus demarcated. We may speak, in fact, of a coherent and comprehensive system of representing the forms of the human body naked and clothed’ (my emphasis).27 The role of the two types of line in defining a personal style emanating from ‘one man’s brain and will’ is central to Beazley’s entire method; it explains the care taken in rendering these lines consistently in the drawings used in both his studies and his publications (Figure 8.5). Interestingly, illustrations in Furtwängler’s two early publications, Griechische Keramik (1883) and Beschreibung der Vasensammlung im Antiquarium I. Berlin (1885), generally recognized as landmarks in the history of pottery studies,

F igure 8.5.  Drawing of a gymnastic trainer by J. D. Beazley. Red-­figure amphora. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art 56.171.38, Beazley Archive. Courtesy of the Classical Art Research Centre, University of Oxford.

  Beazley 1922: 80–1.

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either lack inner details in the rendering of figures or entirely omit reproductions of the figure decoration. The perfunctory finish of the inner details of the figures suggests that they were of peripheral importance to the practice of typological classification at this stage of scholarship. Furtwängler’s earlier Griechische Keramik provides fifteen excellent and faithful illustrations of black- and red-­ figure vases created by Albert Genick.28 But owing to Heinrich Brunn’s influence on Furtwängler’s scholarship (Figure 8.6),29 the reproductions of vases focused on their shapes and ornaments, which were at the time still considered more important than figure decoration in achieving accurate classifications (Figure 8.7). In a pioneering manner, the drawings reproduce significant details such as profiles of the feet, borders, lips, and handles, along with the non-­figural decoration, which was seen as an integral element of the vase construction articulating the vessel’s shape. These features bring out the materiality of the vase and the link between the object’s shape and function. The drawings reflect Furtwängler’s ‘archaeological’ approach to ancient pottery, already established in his study of Mycenaean vases undertaken with Georg Loeschke and in his Griechische Keramik.30 In the latter publication, Furtwängler developed a method of classification based on technique, shape, and decoration. In his subsequent catalogue of the vases in the Berlin Antiquarium (1885), he accomplished similarly multiplex classification based on fabric, period, and shape. Within each subdivision of the material, the author further attempts to group pottery following the style of its figure decoration (stylistic affinity) in what Dietrich von Bothmer called ‘a step toward attribution’.31 It is, however, important to stress that no drawings of the figure decoration were provided in this study. Instead, the text is complemented by reproductions of inscriptions in life-­size facsimile and by seven plates showing select shapes, graffiti, and inscriptions, while references to reproductions of the figured decoration are found in the notes. Only at the turn of the century would Furtwängler launch Griechische Vasenmalerei, his big project in ceramic connoisseurship published in collaboration with Reichhold, with specific care devoted to accurate reproductions of the figure decoration.32 Nevertheless, interest in the rendering of master and minor lines along with other interior details in added colour does not first occur with Beazley or with Furtwängler and Reichhold in the early twentieth century. Lines suggesting   Furtwängler and Genick 1883.   Brunn taught Furtwängler at the University of Munich. In his introduction in the Berlin catalogue, Furtwängler mentions Die griechischen Vasen: Ihr Formen- und Decorationsystem (1877) by Th. Lau, H. Brunn, and P. F. Krell as the source of the terms used in his descriptions of ornaments: Furtwängler 1885: viii. 30   Furtwängler and Loeschke 1879, followed by Furtwängler and Loeschke 1886. For an analysis of the archaeological studies undertaken by Furtwängler, see Flashar 2003 and Hünewinkel 2003: 55–61. 31 32   von Bothmer 1987: 197.   FR (i–­iii). 28 29

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F igure 8.6.  Drawing of a komos (body) and satyrs (shoulder). Red-­figure hydria. Munich, Antikensammlung 2422 (after Brunn and Lau 1877, pl. XXIX).

­ ifferent tones had already appeared in 1853 in the interior details of some figures d illustrated in the Elite céramographique,33 while from the late 1880s the double system made up of dark and light lines (dilute brown or reddish) was used as a tool for the scholarly investigation of vases. Concern for the faithful reproduction of different types of lines must have been related to the growing interest in techniques of decoration, especially in the information these offered about chronology and provenance: the latter had   Lenormant and de Witte 1841–4 was known to Beazley, who commented on the drawing of the Berlin amphora (Antikensammlungen 2160) by Lenormant’s draughtsman in Beazley 1922: 75. 33

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F igure 8.7.  Drawing of a black-­figure exaleiptron with profile of the shape (after Furtwängler and Genick 1883, 18 pl. XXIV).

become important criteria for the classification of ancient Greek pottery and other archaeological items. Gardner, who was appointed Lincoln and Merton Professor of Classical Archaeology in the newly established chair at the University of Oxford in 1887—and who would later teach the young Beazley—­already acknowledged this new interest in style and in regional schools of pottery in his review of Albert Dumont’s La céramique de la Grèce propre (1888): ‘A few years ago, the pictures on Greek pottery were cited without due regard to the date and the source of the vases on which they were portrayed: the subject was everything and the style nothing . . . [Dumont’s] full account of the various schools of ­pottery in Greece is admirable.’34   Gardner 1888: 135.

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In several articles, Gardner further focuses on technique, tools, and use of slip to identify centres of production,35 and he uses illustrations—­in many cases drawn by Anderson—­that display master and minor lines in the anatomical rendering.36 I already mentioned Anderson in the context of his contribution to Hartwig’s seminal study. He was also involved in several other late nineteenthand early twentieth-­century publications. He had a long-­standing association with the same circles of scholars and curators in classical archaeology in which Beazley circulated. He regularly drew vases for Alexander Murray and Cecil Smith, both keepers at the British Museum,37 and Gardner particularly stressed his appreciation of Anderson’s ‘faithful drawings’.38 In Gardner’s catalogue Greek Vases in the Ashmolean Museum (1893),39 some illustrations display master and minor lines, indicated in black and red respectively.40 In one case—­considered ‘an experiment’ by the author—­the illustration even shows the vase painter’s preliminary ‘sketch’ scratched on the surface of the vessel.41 This feature, which was barely taken into account in Beazley’s connoisseurship, was also recorded in some of Reichhold’s drawings.42 Anderson deserves special attention in this chapter since he collaborated regularly with Beazley and eventually influenced his drawings. This collaboration goes back as far as Beazley’s earliest studies in connoisseurship, ‘Kleophrades’ (1910) and ‘The Master of the Berlin Amphora’ (1911) (Figure 8.8).43 The 1880s and 1890s saw the use of drawings reproducing master and minor lines both for the purpose of attribution and for the reconstruction of the shape and subject matter of vases in fragmentary condition.44 A paper by Jane Harrison about the iconography of Theseus’ exploits on two red-­figure cups makes use of drawings for both these purposes and acknowledges the role of Émile Gilliéron

35   e.g. Gardner 1892–3: 70–6, for close description of the use of white and red slips as indicators of Sicilian manufacture. 36   See, for instance, Gardner 1892–3: 137–8. 37 38   Murray 1894; Smith 1890: 167–80.   Terms used by Gardner 1898: 136. 39   Gardner 1893 and, for additions to the catalogue, Gardner 1895: 325–9. 40   Gardner 1893: pl. 18 no. 322 and pl. 21 no. 267. 41   Gardner 1893: 27, no. 292 and pl. 17, Oxford, Ashmolean Museum V292 (ARV 2 501.1; 1656; BAPD 205629): ‘The lines of the sketch are clearly visible, and in the case of this vase only they are indicated by Mr Anderson in plate 17 as an experiment.’ 42  See the drawing of the red-­figured side of the bilingual amphora in Munich, Antikensammlung 2301 (ARV 2 4. 9; 1617; BAPD 200009) in FR (i): pl. 4. 43   According to D. Kurtz (1983: 4 and note 10), drawings by Anderson are preserved in the Beazley Archive. They were published by Beazley to illustrate several of his studies, for instance Beazley 1910: pls I–­III; Beazley 1911: pl. XI; Beazley 1918: 18. 44   On Anderson’s drawings with brown and black lines used for the restoration of vases, see Tsingarida 2007: 77–82, and pls VIII.1: 3–4, with a special focus on the ‘pointed amphora’ in Brussels, Royal Museums of Art and History R303.

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F igure 8.8.  Drawing by F. Anderson of a komast with a lyre. Red-­figure neck-­amphora. London, British Museum E266 (after Beazley 1911, pl. XI).

père and Anderson in producing the illustrations.45 The former reproduced an intact cup then in the Trikoupis collection in Athens, now in the National Archaeological Museum,46 while the latter drew a reconstruction of a fragmentary cup in the Cabinet des Médailles in Paris.47 Although Gilliéron is best known for his association with Heinrich Schliemann and for his imaginative recreations for Arthur Evans of the frescoes from the Palace of Knossos from tiny fragments,48 he also worked with several classicists in Greece. For them, he recorded objects—­ sculptures and vases, often in fragments—­kept in Greek collections or brought to light in recent excavations.49 Several leading British archaeologists, such as Ernest Gardner,50 director of the British School at Athens, and George C. Richards,

  Harrison 1889: 231–42. On Harrison, Greek vases, and lectures in the British Museum, see Baker 2020. 46   Athens, National Museum CC1166, ARV 2 1567.13; BAPD 350911. 47   Paris, Cabinet des Médailles 536, ARV 2 191.104; BAPD 201752. 48 49   Hemingway 2014: 119–37.   See more recently Mertens and Conte 2019. 50   Gardner 1894: pl. IX. 45

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praised the ‘admirable fidelity’51 of his drawings in articles discussing questions of subject matter, technique, regional schools, and, only occasionally, attribution. They used Gilliéron’s drawings to complement their descriptions of different techniques and styles with a special focus on colours, variations in linear rendering, incisions in black-­figure painting, and the application of slips on white-­ground and red-­figure vessels. Drawings by Gilliéron are preserved in the Beazley Archive and were occasionally used by Beazley.52 In Harrison’s publication, Gilliéron’s drawings—­made under the author’s supervision and praised for their ‘perfect accuracy’—aid her attribution of the Trikoupis cup to the painter Douris.53 They reproduce the faded red colours of the ‘kalos’ name inscriptions and indicate in light brown the interior anatomical features of the male figures, which allow the author to draw comparisons with other vases displaying similar ‘minute markings of body lines’ and ‘kalos’ names (Figure 8.9).54 In the same article, Anderson’s drawings complement the photo­ graphs of the preserved sherds of a red-­figure cup to support the methodical reconstruction of the figured decoration and its iconographical subject (Figure 8.10). Harrison felt the need to justify the importance of the drawings and devoted a part of her article to discussing the different options available in restoring the figures. The process involved close scrutiny of the breakage pattern and decoration of every sherd, as well as comparisons with similar scenes on vases of the same period, in order to establish the original positions of the fragments. Harrison thus introduced and explained a new method developed for reconstructing Greek vases through drawing or physical restoration; she further compared it with the operational sequences undertaken to study inscriptions according to the latest advances in epigraphy, a burgeoning sub-­discipline of archaeology.55 It is therefore not mere chance that drawings featuring such details as master and minor lines, added colours, and other techniques of decoration are introduced around the same time in studies dealing with chronology, classification, and place of manufacture, as well as in essays on connoisseurship. In his review of the first fascicule by Furtwängler and Reichhold accompanied by ten plates,

  Quoted from Richards 1894: 381.   For instance, in Beazley 1918: 18. On Gilliéron and Beazley, see Kurtz 1983: 4 and note 10. 53   Harrison 1889: 231. In ARV 2 1567.13, Beazley expresses his doubt about her attribution to Douris but acknowledges the affinity in style. 54   Harrison 1889: 233. 55   Harrison 1889: 234. For comparisons between the developments in epigraphy and archaeology, see Gran-­Aymerich 1998: 263–8; Dyson 2006: 20. 51 52

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F igure 8.9.  Drawing by Émile Gilliéron père of Theseus and Procrustes. Exterior of a red-­figure cup. Athens, National Museum CC1166, former Trikoupis collection (after Harrison 1889, pl. I).

Edmond Pottier praised the importance given to ‘technical details’ and to the tools used for drawing in the understanding of the painter’s style.56

BE A ZL E Y ’S DR AW I NG S: T H E I M PORTA NCE OF DETA I L S A N D FR AGM EN TS FROM FR EEH A N D DR AW I NG TO T R ACI NG

In his study of Beazley’s drawings, von Bothmer makes a distinction between freehand drawings and tracings.57 In his early years of research, Beazley drew sketches of figures, often parts of them, and selective features of the body or drapery. Notebooks containing Beazley’s drawings and annotations are now 56   Pottier 1902: 20 and 221–2. Originally the FR (i–­iii) was only intended to consist of a series of six fascicules, each accompanied by ten plates; they began to appear in 1900 and made up a volume (FR (i)), which was published four years later; see Rouet 2001: 36. The review published in 1902 by Pottier concerns the first of these early fascicules. 57   Von Bothmer 1983: 6–8.

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F igure 8.10.  Restoration proposal by F. Anderson of the exterior of a red-­figure cup showing Theseus’ deeds. Paris, Cabinet des Médailles 536 (after Harrison, 1889, pl. II).

kept at the Beazley Archive in the Classical Art Research Centre at Oxford.58 They provide valuable information about the steps he followed to develop his method of drawing from vases. As noted above, in describing the features that can assist in the identification of a painter’s individual style, Beazley speaks of ‘a coherent and comprehensive system of representing the forms of the human body’, stressing the importance of observing a ‘great many details’ and of the comparison of ‘one vase with another, with all the vases the enquirer has seen here’.59 The strong interest in specific anatomical details, seen as parts of a ‘coherent system’, already occurs in the drawings in his early notebooks. These notebooks foreshadow the method and criteria he would apply in his first connoisseurial publications; moreover they reflect the influence of Morelli’s interest in comparative anatomy and in the

 A recent study of the notebooks with a proposal for their chronology has been published by Rodriguez Perez 2018: 743–809. The notebooks are also discussed by C. Meyer in this volume. 59   Beazley 1918: v. 58

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particular details which he considered to afford the ‘artistic grammar’ crucial for understanding the characteristics of a painter.60 In the early notebooks, which probably date between 1907 and 1910,61 the figural details are generally drawn freehand, with a few exceptions identified by Beazley specifically as tracings.62 The freehand drawings emphasize the major anatomical features normally rendered in relief line in Athenian red-­figure vase painting.63 In Notebook 3 of 1909 (Figure 8.11), drawings of parts of a satyr from an amphora in Harrow—­to be attributed to the Kleophrades Painter in the following year—­focus on the main anatomical divisions of the torso: clavicles, pectorals, sternum, and linea alba. A similar concern is noticeable in Notebook 70 of 1910, containing Beazley’s sketches of vases in the Berlin collection

F igure 8.11.  Beazley’s Notebook 3, p. 39 [1909], the right page. Drawings from an amphora at Harrow, School Museum inv. 55, Beazley Archive. Courtesy of the Classical Art Research Centre, University of Oxford.

  For Giovanni Morelli’s influence on Beazley, see Kurtz 1985: 240–1; Rouet 2001: 60–8.   Following the chronology proposed by Rodriguez Perez 2018: 759–70. 62   In Latin: ‘trac. apud me’, next to the drawing. 63   Drawings of parts were noted by Kurtz 1996: 31–42. 60 61

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F igure 8.12.  Double page 29 from Beazley’s Notebook 70 [1910]. Drawings of the name vase of the Berlin Painter. Red-­figure amphora. Berlin, Antikensammlung 2160, Beazley Archive. Courtesy of the Classical Art Research Centre, University of Oxford.

(Figure 8.12). On the name vase of the painter he would later call the Berlin Painter, he focused on the main lines that reproduce the clavicles, sternum, pectorals, and linea alba on the torso; on the contour lines of the ears and eyes on the head; and on the kneecaps, tibia, and ankle on the lower limbs. He draws these features as individual and independent forms, reflecting the painter’s way of seeing and translating visual patterns into lines. He occasionally adds very light pencilled lines to show the inter-­digitations on the ribs, the contours of the abdomen (see Figure 8.11), the main muscles of the upper and lower limbs, and he copies some vase inscriptions (Figure  8.12). Anatomical details, drawn in black lines, provide the basis for Beazley’s early analysis of the Berlin Painter’s style in his 1911 article ‘Master of the Berlin Amphora’. In the same publication, sketches of such details as the clavicles illustrate the importance of anatomical features in his method of attribution. In both studies, anatomical analysis is supported by ‘finished’ drawings of whole figures.64 A close look at the drawings from the notebooks also confirms Beazley’s early interest in vessel shapes, especially such distinctive parts as the foot, lip, lid, and handles. Apart from drawing such elements, he occasionally made notes on the ceramic forms and technique of decoration, suggesting the importance he gave to the potter’s work for understanding a workshop’s production.   Beazley 1910: pls I–­III; Beazley 1911: 284, pls XI–­XII, XV–­XVI.

64

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According to von Bothmer, Beazley started using tracing paper to transfer figures directly from the vases following a 1908 meeting with Reichhold in Munich. The initial tracings were worked over freehand with pencil to achieve what Beazley called the ‘finished drawings’, that is, reproductions completed with details gleaned through close, side-­by-­side scrutiny of vases and photo­ graphs. In Beazley’s own words, drawings and photographs—­the latter already used in his first connoisseurial studies of 1910 and 1911—were ‘to supplement each other’ in order to achieve the consistent level of detail required for his work.65 While Reichhold’s acknowledged influence may be seen in many features of Beazley’s drawings, the Oxford scholar must also have been familiar with the technique of tracing through his collaborations with P. Gardner in Oxford and from other publications on Greek vases. This practice was indeed already widespread before the publication of Furtwängler and Reichhold’s first volume in 1904.66 Around the time of the 1887 exhibition of his vase collection at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in London, van Branteghem emphasized the im­port­ ance of tracing directly from the objects to obtain reproductions detailed enough for understanding the work of individual painters.67 In several letters he mentions that he ordered drawings from Anderson to illustrate Hartwig’s publication and insisted on the importance of tracing from the vases.68 The technique of supplementing tracings with photographs to ‘improve and complete’ the drawings was already used in a variety of ways in late nineteenth-­century publications dealing with the style and subject matter of decorated pottery, its place of manufacture, and cultural and technical influences. For instance, Alexander Smith published photographic enlargements of tracings by Anderson in his article on the Macmillan aryballos in the British Museum.69 In a similar vein, Robert C. Bosanquet made use of older drawings, among them illustrations of floral patterns on vases, which were corrected by Anderson with the help of

 Preface to the printed catalogue for the exhibition ‘Drawings and Photographs of Greek Vase-­ Paintings by Professor and Mrs J. D. Beazley’ that took place in the Oxford Arts Club in summer 1928, mentioned and quoted in Kurtz 1983: 3, notes 3 and 7. 66  Tracing is known to have been practised already at the beginning of the nineteenth century by ­scholars such as E. Gerhard and by painters such as Ingres; on the former, see the chapter by M.-A. Bernard in this volume, and on the latter, Picard-­Cajan 2003: 299–314. 67   Van Branteghem to W. Fröhner, Archives Weimar GSA 107/227 (4), 12.08.1887: ‘Vous parlez de dessiner sur les 2 lécythes. Je suppose que c’est calqué que vous voulez dire. C’est le seul procédé qui donne un résultat exact.’ 68  Archives Weimar GSA 107/225 (5), 11.11.1888: ‘J’ai commandé les dessins des vases pour Hartwig’; 6.12.1888: ‘Envoi d’un calque de la coupe, achetée chez Feuardent’, now Chicago 07.323 (formerly in the Catalogue of the van Branteghem Collection, Fröhner 1892: 28, no. 69, ARV2 450, 23; BPAD 205357). 69   Smith 1890: 167–80, fig. 1 and pl. 2. 65

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photo­graphs.70 In the 1890s, a growing number of scholars acknowledged the potential of photographs in archaeology and art history, including the study of sculpture and vases.71 The difficulty of taking photographs of the convex surfaces of painted pottery was already acknowledged by A.  Smith, and in 1895 he invented the cyclograph, an apparatus devised to minimize such distortion.72 In the same year P. Gardner employed cyclographic photographs to illustrate an article and to serve as a basis for a drawing by Anderson for the same publication.73 In due course the attention which Beazley lavished on the rendering of anatomy and clothing in his search of a painter’s style would develop into a growing interest in the study of fragments. Even in his earliest known notebook of 1907, Beazley drew fragments with figured decoration.74 Furthermore, fragments were already included in the corpus of works which he attributed to the Kleophrades Painter. Several years later Beazley devoted a series of articles to collections of fragments culminating in his ‘Campana fragments in Florence’, in which he offered a masterly demonstration of his method by joining fragments from vessels held in different countries and museums.75 In his 1953 review of Kraiker’s catalogue of red-­figure vases in Heidelberg, Beazley accordingly stressed the importance of sherds in defining a painter’s style: ‘Dr Kraiker is not of those who count time spent on fragments time frittered away; his catalogue shows not only the right care, but a nice feeling for distinction of style. Work on fragments exercises this sense and develops it.’76 Although fragments are known to have entered collections since the early nineteenth century, most notably Giampietro Campana’s private ‘museum’, they were generally acquired not as collectibles in their own right but to complete missing parts of vases. The only known exception from that period is the collection of the Marquess of Northampton, which included around sixteen sherds to fulfil the collector’s interest in inscriptions and shield episema.77 The study of pottery fragments and their reproduction in drawings commenced in earnest in the late 1880s. While previous scholarship has focused on fragments generally as 70   Bosanquet 1899: 169, note 1 for the description of the drawing process, and 182–3, figs 6–7, and 172, fig. 2, for examples involving floral patterns. 71   On photography of ancient sculpture for academic purposes, see Klamm 2017, and especially 55–7 for the use of photographs in the study of sculpture in Furtwängler 1893. 72   On the invention of the device, see Murray 1892: 192, and the chapter by K. Morton in this volume. 73   Gardner 1895: 325 (explanation of the illustrations) and 328, fig. 2 and pl. XV. 74  e.g. Notebook 127 [1907], 69, containing drawings of fragments from the collection at the University of Bonn; Notebook 115 [1908], 51 (right-­hand page), showing the drawing of a fragment from Palermo, Archaeological Museum (annotated by Beazley: ‘fragment of a cup with Athenodoros’); from Gela (Terranova), coll. Navara, drawing of a medallion partly preserved (the lacuna is mentioned in the annotation and the fragment attributed to Euphronios). 75   Rouet 2001: 122–3; Sarti 2012: 181–207. 76 77   Quoted by von Bothmer 1985: 11 III (Beazley 1953: 309).   Bérard 2014: 11–13.

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a means to propose scientific reconstructions and restorations of vases and their subject matter,78 the growing interest in this class of material should also be related to the development of connoisseurship and archaeology. Sherds became collectible objects for scholars and amateurs concerned with individual styles in vase painting. For instance, van Branteghem and Adolf Bourguignon purchased or exchanged them for other fragments in order to shed light on stylistic aspects of decoration, painters’ and potters’ signatures, and the lettering of inscriptions in general.79 It is probably also significant that at the same time Hartwig and Hauser, who were both at the forefront of studies in attribution, acted as agents or advisers to van Branteghem and Bourguignon80 and assembled important collections of fragments which were later offered or sold to university museums, including those at Leipzig and Göttingen.81

CONCLUSION

Furtwängler’s folio publication Griechische Vasenmalerei appeared from 1904 and was accompanied by full-­ size and highly detailed drawings made by Reichhold. It soon became a landmark in classical scholarship and greatly contributed to the development of studies on attribution. When Beazley completed his studies at Oxford in 1907 and set about publishing his first essays in connoisseurship, he was undoubtedly inspired by this work. The textual and visual evidence, however, suggests that Beazley’s interest in drawings as tools of connoisseurship resulted from a long-­term process initiated as early as the 1880s from both the new studies on vase painters’ personalities and the development of classical archaeology as an academic and scientific field of research with its own tools of investigation.

 See above, notes 45 and 46. Other contemporary scholars studied fragments from a similar ­ erspective: see, for instance, L. Pollak’s inaugural lecture at the University of Vienna in 1892, ‘Zu p den Wiener Krater-­ Fragmenten auf Tafel IX der Wiener Vorlegeblätter 1890/91’, discussed in Schröner 2014: 140–1. 79   As illustrated by several fragments in the van Branteghem collection and sherds of a psykter in the Bourguignon collection depicting the death of Pentheus. For fragments from the van Branteghem collection with figured decoration and/or signatures or ‘kalos’ names which provide evidence for attribution, see Brussels, Royal Museums of Art and History A1378 (ARV 2 117.1; 1577; BAPD 200979: Chelis epoiesen); Vatican, Museo Gregoriano Etrusco 16527 (ARV 2 432.53; 1653; BAPD 205097: Douris egrapsen, a gift from Hartwig); and Bryn Mawr College P205 (BAPD 974: Ho pais and kalos). 80   Tsingarida 2014: 115–21. 81   Sold to the university museum at Leipzig by Hauser in 1897; see Pfisterer-­Haas 2006: 13–19. For the purchase of Hartwig’s collection of fragments by the University of Göttingen in 1892 and 1897, and the late nineteenth- to early twentieth-­century networks of German and American amateurs, collectors, and scholars, see Graepler and Eschbach 2014: 123–36, especially 124–5 (on Hartwig). 78

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Several key techniques of Beazley’s drawings—­such as the combination of tracings and photographs and the use of differently toned pencil lines for interior details—­were already used in illustrations in earlier pottery studies. The rise of connoisseurship might explain the proliferation of drawings concentrating on the figured decoration of vases; but it appears that the closely observed reproductions which are the particular focus of this chapter responded also to a much broader interest in these objects, studied in fragments as well as intact pieces, and through a growing repertoire of methods reflecting the new aspirations of the disciplines of classical archaeology and art history. Against this background of previous practices, a remarkable and innovative feature in Beazley’s work is that he devoted the same careful scrutiny to both major and minor works and painters, intact vases and fragments, and minute details as well as whole series of figures. His method of attribution was based on close analysis of all parts of the pottery craft—­including figure decoration, geometric and floral patterns, and figure composition—­in order to define a system ‘so definite, coherent, distinctive and in some respects so wilful, [that] is most intelligible as a personal system’, without forgetting the material aspects of the ceramic slip and technique employed as well as the vessel shape.82 To end this chapter, I return to Beazley’s own words to describe the role played by drawings in a search for the artist that takes into account a broad range of factors: ‘If you wish to distinguish one style from another, my advice will be one word: draw; draw, freehand, make sketches of the shape, of the general composition, and of separate details . . . Draw: for the hand remembers as well as the eye.’83

BI BL IOGR A PH Y A rrington , N. T. 2017. ‘Connoisseurship, Vases and Greek Art and Archaeology’, in J. M. Padgett (ed.), The Berlin Painter and His World: Athenian Vase-Painting in the Early Fifth Century b.c. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Art Museum), 21–39. B aker , A. 2020. ‘Myths of the Odyssey in the British Museum (and Beyond): Jane Ellen Harrison’s Museum Talks and Their Audience’, in A. Petsalis-Diomidis with E.  Hall (eds), The Classical Vase Transformed: Consumption, Reproduction and Class in Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 123–37. B eazley , J. D. 1910. ‘Kleophrades’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 30: 38–68.

  Beazley 1922: 84.   Quoted from a lecture on the Brygos Painter delivered in 1955–6 to undergraduates at Oxford; see Kurtz 1989: 101. For discussion of this passage in a different context, see also the chapter by C. Meyer in this volume. 82 83

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B eazley , J. D. 1911. ‘The Master of the Berlin Amphora’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 31: 276–95. B eazley , J. D. 1918. Attic Red-figured Vases in American Museums (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). B eazley , J. D. 1922. ‘Cithaeroedus’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 42: 70–98. B eazley , J.  D. 1953. ‘Review of the Katalog der Sammlung antiker Kleinkunst des Archäologischen Instituts der Universität Heidelberg: Band I, die Rotfigurigen Attischen Vasen by Wilhelm Kraiker’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 53: 309. B érard , M.-A. 2014. ‘La collection de vases grecs du Marquis de Northampton: entre archéologie et sciences de la nature’, Cahiers de l’Ecole du Louvre. Recherches en histoire de l’art, histoire des civilisations, archéologie, anthropologie et muséologie 5: 4–14. B osanquet , R. C. 1899. ‘Some Early Funeral Lekythoi’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 19: 169–84. B othmer , D.  von . 1983. ‘The Execution of the Drawings’, in D. C. Kurtz (ed.), The Berlin Painter (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 6–8. B othmer , D. von . 1985. ‘Beazley the Teacher’, in D. C. Kurtz (ed.), Beazley and Oxford. Lectures Delivered at Wolfson College, Oxford on 28 June 1985 (Oxford: Oxbow), 5–18. B othmer , D. von . 1987. ‘Greek Vase-Painting: Two Hundred Years of Connoisseurship’, in M. True (ed.), Papers on the Amasis Painter and His World (Malibu, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum), 184–204. C askey , L.  D., and J.  D.  B eazley . 1931–63. Attic Vase Paintings in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Vols I–­III (Boston, MA; Oxford: Museum of Fine Arts and Oxford University Press). C ook , R. M. 1997. Greek Painted Pottery, 3rd ed. (London; New York: Routledge). D yson , S t . L. 2006. In Pursuit of Ancient Pasts: A History of Classical Archaeology in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press). F lashar , M. (ed.). 2003. Adolf Furtwängler: Der Archäologe (Munich: Biering und Brinkmann). F röhner , W. 1892. Collection van Branteghem: vases peints et terres cuites antiques dont la vente aux enchères aura lieu à Paris, Hôtel Drouot, salle n°3, le Jeudi 16, Vendredi 17 et Samedi 1892 (Paris: Imp. de l’Art). F urtwängler , A. 1885. Beschreibung der Vasensammlung im Antiquarium, Vols I–­II (Berlin: Spemann). F urtwängler , A. 1893. Meisterwerke griechischen Plastik: Kunstgeschichtliche Untersuchungen (Leipzig; Berlin: Giesecke and Devrient). F urtwängler , A. 1894. ‘Review of P.  Hartwig, Die griechischen Meisterschalen der Blütezeit des strengen rotfigurigen Stiles’, Berliner philologische Wochenschrift, January 20: cols 105–14; January 27: cols 141–7. F urtwängler , A., and A. G enick . 1883. Griechische Keramik (Berlin: E. Wasmuth). F urtwängler , A., and G.  L oeschke (eds). 1879. Mykenische Thongefässe: Festschrift zur Feier des fünfzigjährigen Bestehens des Deutschen Archäologischen Institutes in Rom im Auftrag des Institutes in Athen (Berlin: Asher). F urtwängler , A., and G.  L oeschke (eds). 1886. Mykenische Vasen: Vorhellenische Thongefässe aus dem Gebiete des Mittelmeeres (Berlin: Asher).

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G ardner , E. 1894. ‘A Lecythus from Eretria’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 14: 170–85. G ardner , P. 1888. ‘Les céramiques de la Grèce propre by A. Dumont, M. J. Chaplain and E. Pottier; and Histoire de la céramique grecque by O. Rayet, M. Collignon’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 9: 135–6. G ardner , P. 1892–3. ‘Cacus on a Black-Figured Vase’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 13: 70–6. G ardner , P. 1892–3. ‘Tithonus on a Red-Figured Vase’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 13: 137–8. G ardner , P. 1893. Catalogue of the Greek Vases in the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford: Clarendon Press). G ardner , P. 1895. ‘Two Sepulchral Lekythoi’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 15: 325–9. G ardner , P. 1898. ‘Boreas and Oreithyia on a Late Attic Vase’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 18: 136–40. G raepler , D., and N. Eschbach. 2014. ‘Von der Stilprobe zum Meisterwerk zu den Fragmenten griechischer Keramik in den wachsenden Universitätssammlungen des späten 19. und frühen 20. Jhs’, in S. Schmidt and M. Steinhart (eds), Sammeln und Erforschen: Griechische Vasen in neuzeitlichen Sammlungen. Beihefte Deutschland VI (Munich: C. H. Beck), 123–36. G ran -A ymerich , E. 1998. Naissance de l’archéologie moderne, 1798–1945 (Paris: CNRS Editions). H arrison , J.  E. 1889. ‘The Cylices Related to the Exploits of Theseus’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 10: 231–42. H artwig , P. 1893. Die griechischen Meisterschalen der Blütezeit des strengen rotfigurigen Stiles (Stuttgart; Berlin: Spemann). H auser , F. 1895. ‘Vasenfunde in München’, Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 10: 151–64. H auser , F. 1896. ‘Ein griechischer Weinkühler in der Sammlung Bourguignon’, Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 11: 108–13. H emingway , S. 2014. ‘Les Gilliéron et la restauration des fresques minoennes à Knossos’, in A. Boucher (ed.), La Grèce des origines: entre rêve et archéologie. Catalogue d’exposition au Musée d’archéologie nationale, St Germain en Laye, 5 octobre 2014–19 janvier 2015 (Paris: Editions RMN), 119–37. H ünewinkel , S. 2003. ‘Furtwängler, Schliemann und die “Mykenischen Thongefässe” ’, in M.  Flashar (ed.), Adolf Furtwängler: Der Archäologe (Munich: Biering und Brinkmann), 55–61. K lamm , S t . 2017. ‘ “Pictorial Silhouettes” and Their Surroundings: Archaic Sculpture and Archaeological Photography’, in S. Hamill and M. R. Luke (eds), Photography and Sculpture: The Art Object in Reproduction (Los Angeles, CA: The Getty Research Institute), 50–66. K lein , W. 1882. Die griechischen Vasen mit Meistersignaturen, 1st ed. (Vienna: Gerold). K lein , W. 1886. Euphronios: Eine Studie zur Geschichte der griechischen Malerei, 2nd ed. (Vienna: Gerold). K urtz , D. C. 1983. The Berlin Painter (Oxford: Clarendon Press).

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K urtz , D. C. 1985. ‘Beazley and the Connoisseurship of Greek Vases’, in J. Frel and S. Knudsen Morgan (eds), Greek Vases in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Vol. 2 (Malibu, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum), 237–50. K urtz , D. C. 1989. ‘The Training of Archaeologists’, in D. C. Kurtz (ed.), Greek Vases: Lectures by J. D. Beazley (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 98–102. K urtz , D. C. 1996. ‘Sicilian Notebooks’, in G. Rizzo and F. Giudice (eds), I vasi attici ed altre ceramiche cœve in Sicilia: atti del Convegno Internazionale, Catania, Camarina, Gela, Vittoria 28 marzo–1 aprile 1990 (Catania: Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche, Centro di studio sull’archeologia greca), 31–42. L enormant , C., and J.  de W itte . 1841–4. Elite des monuments céramographiques: matériaux pour l’histoire des religions et des mœurs de l’antiquité (Paris: Leleux). M ertens , J. R., and L. C onte . 2019. Watercolours of the Acropolis: Emile Gillièron in Athens (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art). M urray , A. 1892. ‘An Athenian Lekythos’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 15: 192–3. M urray , A. 1894. Designs from Greek Vases in the British Museum (London: Trustees of the Museum). P fisterer -H aas , S. 2006. CVA Leipzig: Antikenmuseum der Universität, Vol. VI (Munich: C. H. Beck). P icard -C ajan , P. 2003. ‘Le vase grec dans l’imaginaire d’Ingres’, in P. Rouillard and A. Verbanck-Piérard (eds), Le vase grec et ses destins (Munich: Biering and Brinkmann), 299–314. P ottier , E. 1902. ‘Etudes de céramique grecque: à propos de deux publications récentes’, Gazette des Beaux-Arts 27.1: 19–36, 221–38. R ichards , G.  C. 1894. ‘Selected Vase Fragments from the Acropolis of Athens. Part III’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 14: 381–7. R obertson , M. C. 1976. ‘Beazley and After’, Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst 27: 29–46. R obertson , M.  C. 1985. ‘Beazley and Attic Vase Painting’, in D.  C.  Kurtz (ed.), Beazley and Oxford: Lectures Delivered at Wolfson College, Oxford on 28 June 1985 (Oxford: Oxford University Committee for Archaeology), 189–230. R odriguez P erez , D. 2018. ‘Sir John Beazley’s Notebooks: A New Resource for the Study of Athenian Figured-Decorated Pottery’, Hesperia 87.4: 743–809. R ouet , P. 2001. Approaches to the Study of Attic Vases: Beazley and Pottier (Oxford: Oxford University Press). S arti , S. 2012. ‘John Davidson Beazley e i Campana fragments in Florence’, in G.  Camporeale (ed.), Francesco Nicosia: L’archeologo e il soprintendente. Scritti in memoria. Notiziaro della Suprintendenza per I Beni Archeologici della Toscana suppl. 8 (Florence: All’insegna del giglio), 181–7. S chröner , H. 2014. ‘Die Bedeutung der griechischen Vasen in den Universitätssammlungen’, in S.  Schmidt and M.  Steinhart (eds), Sammeln und Erforschen: Griechische Vasen in neuzeitlichen Sammlungen. Beihefte zum Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Vol. VI (Munich: C. H. Beck), 137–47. S mith , C. 1890. ‘A Protokorinthian Lekythos in the British Museum’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 11: 167–80.

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S teinhart , M. 2014. ‘Adolf Furtwängler, Karl Reichhold und die “Griechische Vasenmalerei”, oder: Tradition und Gestaltung eines imaginären Museums’, in S.  Schmidt and M.  Steinhart (eds), Sammeln und Erforschen: Griechische Vasen in neuzeitlichen Sammlungen. Beihefte zum Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Vol. VI (Munich: C. H. Beck), 149–59. S tewart , P. 2018. ‘Ancient Greek Artists and Texts: Loss and Recreation’, in C.  M.  Draycott, R.  Raja, K.  Welch, and T.  Wootton (eds), Visual Histories of the Classical World: Essays in Honor of R. R. R. Smith (Turnhout: Brepols), 53–5. T singarida , A. 2007. ‘An Insight in Late 19th-Century Conservation Work: F. Anderson’s Restoration of the Red-figure Amphora R303 in the Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire in Brussels’, in M. Bentz and U. Kästner (eds), Konservieren oder Restaurieren: Die Restaurierung griechischer Vasen von der Antike bis Heute. Beihefte zum Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Vol. III (Munich: C. H. Beck), 77–82. T singarida , A. 2014. ‘The Search of the Artist: The Van Branteghem and Bourguignon Collections and the Connoisseurship of Greek Vases’, in S. Schmidt and M. Steinhart (eds), Sammeln und Erforschen. Griechische Vasen in neuzeitlichen Sammlungen. Beihefte zum Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Vol. VI (Munich: C. H. Beck), 115–21. W alter , C. 2007. ‘Le dessin “scientifique” des vases grecs au service de l’attribution’, Perspective 1: 59–63. W alter , C. 2008. ‘Towards a More “Scientific” Archaeological Tool: The Accurate Drawing of Greek Vases between the End of the Nineteenth and the First Half of the Twentieth Centuries’, in N. Schlanger and J. Nordbladh (eds), Archives, Ancestors, Practices: Archaeology in the Light of Its History (New York; Oxford: Berghahn), 179–90.

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9

Drawing the Greek Vase A British Museum Illustrator’s Perspective Kate Morton

I N T RODUCT ION

In an Officer’s Report dated 27 September 1909 Arthur Smith, Keeper of the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, asked the British Museum Trustees for an improvement to the position of Mr Frederick Anderson, the ‘draftsman’ employed by the department as a casual ‘tradesman’ at a pay rate of 10 shillings per day. Anderson, he argued, ‘is well known as a draftsman of un­equalled fidelity and skill in the decipherment and rendering of difficult subjects’.1 His skill as a photographer, he added, together with his great practical knowledge of various mechanical processes, had enabled him to advise the department since 1893 ‘as to the methods to be employed to give the best, most economical results’. As a result of this report Frederick Anderson joined the department in 1909 as the first ‘Draughtsman of Antiquities’ on the British Museum Establishment List.2 As one of Anderson’s successors, I sit at my drawing board (or more frequently at my computer) aware that I am part of a long tradition kept alive by a need to explore objects, including Greek vases, through drawing. Tasked with the production of two-­dimensional representations of artefacts from the British Museum 1   GRA Officer’s Reports, Vol. 5 (1909–10): 78–9. The report entry also makes clear that Anderson’s handling of ‘the most valuable objects in the Department . . . should be recognised and sanctioned by the concession of a position on the Establishment’. I am very grateful to my British Museum colleagues Alexandra Villing, Judith Swaddling, Susan Woodford, Sarah Faulks, Claire Thorne, and Dyfri Williams for their help during my research; and I am indebted to the editors of this volume for their patient support during the writing process. 2   British Museum Establishment List 1890–1915. March 1910: 11.

Kate Morton, Drawing the Greek Vase: A British Museum Illustrator’s Perspective In: Drawing the Greek Vase. Edited by: Caspar Meyer and Alexia Petsalis-­Diomidis, Oxford University Press. © Caspar Meyer and Alexia Petsalis-­Diomidis 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192856128.003.0009

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collection for publication or display, I sit in close proximity to an in­valu­able paper archive of published and unpublished drawings of Greek vases. This collection of drawings presents a rich resource for exploring how the graphic conventions and styles of vase illustrations have changed over time. The reasons for such changes are embedded in the history of the relationship between the illustrator on the one hand and, on the other, classical scholarship, museum display, and archaeological practice.3 But the value of drawing in this context was never in doubt even before the sumptuous folios of William Hamilton’s first collection were produced at great cost in the late eighteenth century.4 Many years later, and after an enormous quantity of high-­quality line engravings and lithographs had been published and critiqued by each new generation, J. D. Beazley (1885–1970) spoke about the usefulness of exploring pictorial detail through drawn lines: ‘Who draws learns, and the hand remembers no less well than the eye.’5 Later in 1960, R. M. Cook thought that drawing methods, as part of the recording process, were important enough to warrant description in his seminal handbook on Greek painted pottery.6 In this chapter I will introduce my predecessors in the Department of Greece and Rome and the work they produced relating to the museum’s Greek vase ­collection in order to gain insights into their practical methods and techniques.7 I am particularly concerned with discovering evidence of how drawings were done and how past working methods compare with contemporary ones. I will then reflect on my own techniques and describe my way of working as an archaeological illustrator.

I L LUST R ATOR S OF GR EEK VA SE S I N T H E BR I T ISH MUSEUM

At some point before the mid 1970s, the bulk of original artwork created by departmental illustrators was either lost or discarded, so we have little evidence of the working methods of the earliest illustrators, apart from the documents contained in what I will refer to as the ‘Robertson Box’, owing to its gold embossed title Drawings Connected with Geometric Pottery in Preparation of 3   This history is well documented and discussed in other contributions in this volume. For previous accounts, see Piggott 1965; Moser 2012, 2014; Walters 2008. 4   Jenkins and Sloan 1996, and M. Gaifmann in this volume. 5   Beazley’s lecture delivered to Oxford undergraduates in 1955/6 in Kurtz 1989: 101–2. 6   Cook 1960: 284–5. 7   The Department of Greece and Rome was formerly part of the Department of Antiquities 1808–60/1, and constituted as a separate entity from 1860/1. It was known from then until 2002 as the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities.

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Catalogue by Professor C. M. Robertson, kept in the Department of Greece and Rome. Illustration work ceased during the Second World War, and there seems to have been a move away from the tradition of ‘unadventurous’ catalogue publication after the war.8 Robertson’s projected catalogue was abandoned when he left the museum in 1948. The box contains unsigned and undated drawings that can (after some detective work) be attributed to individual illustrators and offer valuable information on pre-­war drawing techniques. I have also been able to explore a chest full of drawings made since 1978 in conjunction with the publications that feature the graphic works in their intended context; the latter provide evidence for the original works’ date and purpose. Illustrators working in the museum historically have been dissuaded from adding their name to a piece of work. The ownership of an image, once completed, passes to the Trustees of the British Museum and any acknowledgement of the creator is guided by the editorial house style of the day. Only in recent years have these house styles begun to acknowledge the work of illustrators and pho­to­ graphers as part of the documentation process.

Frederick Anderson (1893–1912) Since the foundation of the museum, one of the main concerns of the Trustees was to publish the growing collection of objects in a series of catalogues for which ‘they had taken great trouble to engage draughtsmen and engravers of the highest quality’.9 In the early 1890s one of these draughtsmen, Frederick Anderson, began working on material for the multi-­volume Catalogue of the Greek and Etruscan Vases in the British Museum.10 Each volume focused on a different type of pottery. His final contribution to the series was for part 2 of volume 1, on Cypriot, Italian and Etruscan Pottery.11 During this time he also produced illustrations for Murray’s Designs from Greek Vases in the British Museum, Murray and Smith’s White Athenian Vases in the British Museum, and Walters’s History of Ancient Pottery.12 The type of images he produced fall into three categories: photographic reproductions, black and white line and tone drawings of vase paintings, and perspective drawings of vase shapes. With regard to his photographic work, what strikes me as noteworthy is his engagement with the new technique of cyclography (also known as periphotography) invented by Arthur Smith, then First Class Assistant in the department. When Smith published his invention in 1895, he described it as an instrument ‘principally designed for the purpose of photographing, without distortion, a larger part of the surface of a cylinder than can be seen at 9   Wilson 2002: 243–5.   Wilson 2002: 128.   Walters 1893; Smith 1896; Walters 1896; Walters 1912; Forsdyke 1925. 12   Murray 1894; Murray and Smith 1896; Walters 1905. 8

10

  Walters 1912.

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one view’.13 The impressive results of this technique can be observed in Murray and Smith’s publication on Athenian white-­ground lekythoi.14 While the technique could be seen to obviate the need to publish a drawing of the pot, Anderson was still asked to create a small perspective drawing to accompany the photographs (Figure 9.1); the resulting drawing was also published in A Guide to the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the British Museum in 1899.15 A group of other mounted examples of photographic experimental prints are preserved in a departmental archive box.16 Figure 9.2 presents two photographs of the same vase but the lower image has been warped on two axes. The idea of distorting photographs to ‘flatten’ the figures is of particular interest to an illustrator and Anderson would have been aware of the technique’s potential in assisting the drawing process.17 The potential

F igure 9.1.  Photograph of a painted scene on an Athenian white-­ground pyxis showing a wedding procession. Attributed to the Splanchnopt Painter. 460s bc. BM 1894,0719.1 (Vase D11). Created using A. H. Smith’s cyclograph, with Anderson’s drawn perspective view. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

14   Smith 1895: 253.   Murray and Smith 1896.   The drawing is captioned ‘Fig. 62—Cover of a pyxis. D11.’: 184. 16  Photographic proofs made by A.  H.  Smith in preparation for: Murray and Smith 1896 and the Exposition Internationale de Bruxelles 1897. 17   A report to the Trustees from M. A. Smith (GRA Keeper) states that ‘Mr. Anderson as draftsman, has done very useful work, in the combination of drawing with photography,’ in the preparation of Vase Catalogue, Vol. 1, part II. GRA Officer’s Reports, Vol. 6 (1911–12): 77. 13 15

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F igure 9.2.  Two prints of an Athenian red-­figure kylix showing a sympotic scene on the exterior. Name vase of Painter of London E100. D 22.2 cm. c.460 bc. BM 1867,0508.1032 (Vase E100). The lower image has been distorted as the photograph was taken by tilting the front and back plates in a technical camera. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

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F igure 9.3a.  Anderson’s drawing of the red-­figure kylix BM 1893,1115.1 (Vase E80). Interior tondo: Apollo seated at an altar with a kithara; exterior: three-­figure group on either side consisting of a woman with oinochoe and bearded man and youth holding phialae and sceptres. © The Trustees of the British Museum. F igure 9.3b.  Exterior of the Athenian red-­figure kylix illustrated in Figure 9.3a. Excavated at Chiusi. D 22.86 cm. 470s bc. BM 1893,1115.1 (Vase E80). © The Trustees of the British Museum.

of this method can be gleaned by juxtaposing Anderson’s drawing of a kylix, which was probably based on ‘corrected’ photographic prints (Figure 9.3a),18 with the distorted figure painting visible in a regular photograph (Figure 9.3b). But his main work required close contact with the actual pot surface in order to faithfully copy the paintings that so intrigued artists and scholars. Neoclassical artists such as John Flaxman (1755–1826), Adam Buck (1759–1833), and Henry Moses (1781/2–1870)—all of whom had drawn vases from the British Museum collection—­aimed to guide students of art and design in how to explore and use ancient decoration on vases and, as a result, a degree of ‘artistic licence’ was considered acceptable. Anderson, by contrast, sought to avoid any overt stylization of the anatomical features of the figured scenes and was required to be accurate in his delineation of the decoration. Nevertheless, he sometimes presented the painted scenes both divorced from the vessels and framed by lines (Figure 9.4), reminiscent of the depiction of vases by neoclassical artists such as Wilhelm Tischbein (1751–1829).19 Anderson would certainly have been aware

18

  Smith 1896: pl. V.

19

  On Tischbein see A. Smith and A. Petsalis-­Diomidis in this volume.

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F igure 9.4.  Anderson’s drawing of the painted scene on an Athenian black-­figure neck amphora, as reproduced in Walters 1893. Birth of Athena, attributed to the Antimenes Painter. From Vulci. H 38.1 cm. c.520 bc. BM 1836,0224.10 (B244). © The Trustees of the British Museum.

of such reproductions from the holdings of his department’s library; just as he would have been aware of the contemporary debate about the relative advantages of photography over line illustration with its inherently ‘unscientific’ interpretive quality.20 In order to explore one of Anderson’s drawing processes I reacquainted myself with the method he would have used to copy a vase painting. I was reminded how complex and time-­consuming it is to transfer the ancient lines from curved surfaces onto paper. The drawing of a vase such as the kylix in Figure 9.3 demands excellent eyesight and good lighting. As artificial lighting was only gradually installed around the museum during the 1880s and 1890s,21 it is very likely that Anderson worked at a desk near a window in daylight hours in his early years in post. To trace the vase decoration and then transfer the drawing to be refined on a fresh sheet of paper, Anderson would have used the best translucent medium available to him. Tischbein had already described the use of tracing paper by some of his best pupils at the end of the eighteenth century—­most likely a type of oiled paper.22 A recipe for making transparent paper published in 1890 suggests rubbing paper with castor oil and degreasing it in pure alcohol once the drawing 20

  Rouet 2001: 49–52.   

21

  Wilson 2002: 186.   

22

  Tischbein 1956: 357.

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is complete, thereby restoring it to its original state.23 By the end of the nineteenth century machine-­made roll ‘tracing paper’ was in production and available to Anderson. It was introduced to J. D. Beazley by Karl Reichhold (1856–1919) in 1908,24 and from 1946 he favoured the American brand Traceoline because it was robust and highly transparent.25 In the 1960s R.  M.  Cook (1909–2000) preferred Kodatrace, a brand of frosted acetate still used by screen printmakers today.26 Since these media offer only partial visibility, illustrators more recently have begun to use strips of acetate—­a material first produced in the early twentieth century for photographic processing. Once the problem of visibility had been overcome and the ancient lines traced, Anderson needed to tackle the problem of refining his working drawing and, in doing so, translating the painting onto a flat surface. In Harrison and MacColl’s Greek Vase Paintings and Murray’s Designs from Greek Vases in the British Museum, both published in 1894, the limitations of using photography on concave and convex surfaces and the need for the intervention of a skilled illustrator are explained.27 Similarly, when an illustrator transfers to paper images that are on curved surfaces, distortion of the figures and modified gaps between them are unavoidable.28 While refamiliarizing myself with the technique of using strips of acetate and a fine ink pen to draw the outlines of the figures without disrupting the narrative relationships between them, I was reminded that each such reproduction is an educated ‘fudge’ (Figure 9.5). Anderson was particularly good at ‘fudging’, as can be seen in his drawings in Figures 9.3a and 9.4 where he needed to shift lines here and there so as to unify the whole and maintain the proportions of figural anatomy and composition. Anderson’s skill came to the attention of J. D. Beazley when he was developing his own drawing methods based on techniques pioneered by Karl Reichhold’s work of the 1910s. Beazley used and credited Anderson’s drawings in his early publications in the Journal of Hellenic Studies.29 Anderson also produced a large number of line drawings of individual pieces for the museum’s published vase catalogues (Figure 9.6a). Since the earliest years of the department’s register of objects, curators had added sketches to aid recognition of individual objects in the museum’s internal register entries: miniature drawings of selected vases punctuate the handwritten text (Figure 9.6b). Anderson’s task was to improve on such drawings for the official publication by producing a detailed representation of the item, including breaks and information on conservation work (Figure 9.6c). As their function was to give students and 24   Anonymous 1887: 28.   Kurtz 1983: 3. See K. Lorenz in this volume. 26   Von Bothmer 1983: 6–8.   Cook 1960: 283. 27   Harrison and MacColl 1894; Murray 1894: 2. 28   For a detailed account, see Lindsley F. Hall’s ‘Notes on the Drawings’ in Richter 1936: vii–­x. 29   Beazley 1910: 55, note 59. 23 25

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F igure 9.5.  Strips of acetate taped together form an outer transparent ‘skin’ that can be drawn upon using a fine (0.1 mm) permanent ink pen. Registration marks are used to guide the subsequent tracing process. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

visitors a visual impression of a particular vessel, with more details provided in the text, a perspective drawing without scale was deemed sufficient. Anderson’s untimely death in 1912, at the age of fifty-­four, was reported to the Trustees as a ‘serious loss’ to the department. In the same report, Anderson’s successor was introduced.

Charles Oliver Waterhouse (1915–38) Waterhouse, A.  H.  Smith reassured the department, ‘works fast, has great ­application, and is acquiring an understanding of the antique. He also has a full knowledge of illustration processes’.30 Waterhouse remained in the department until the outbreak of the Second World War, returning to the British Museum in

  GRA Officer’s Report, Vol. 7, 1913–14: 18. Waterhouse was seconded to the British Museum by Waterlow’s the printers, according to Wilson 2002: 208. 30

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F igure 9.6a.  Line-­block reproductions of inked line drawings by Anderson published in Walters 1912: 85. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

1946 after having been awarded an MBE for his services as ‘Draughtsman’ in the Ministry of Economic Warfare.31 The influence of Anderson’s style on Waterhouse’s drawing is evident in the many thumbnail images he produced for museum catalogues (Figure 9.7). He used the same fine, linear shading technique by employing ‘dipping’ ink pens   British Museum Trustees’ Standing Committee Meeting Minutes, 13 December 1947, 6021.

31

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F igure 9.6b. Thumbnail aide-­mémoire drawings in the Register of Antiquities. Greece & Rome. Vol. 4, 1 June 1888–31 December 1899. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

F igure 9.6c.  Anderson’s detailed perspective drawing of the same vase BM 1894,1101.475 (C855) published in Walters 1912. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

(Figure  9.8a–­c) and the results could easily be reproduced through the line-­ block printing method. This allowed for the illustration to sit next to the text entry and did not require the special (and more expensive) paper that was necessary for half-­tone reproduction.32 Such line techniques, widely used by line illustrators of the day for advertising and book illustrations, were a prerequisite skill for graphic art employment. Thanks to the existence of the Robertson Box, it is possible to gain insights into the working methods of both Anderson and Waterhouse. The methods

  For a description of these printing processes, Hope-­Taylor 1967: 181–9.

32

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F igure 9.7.  Line-­block reproduction of Waterhouse’s side view of a Cycladic collared pottery jar with four vertical suspension lugs. From Antiparos. H 15.24 cm. BM 1912,0831.1 (Vase A304) in Forsdyke 1925. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

employed by the two men remained similar during their four decades working in the department. For example, to ensure good-­quality reproduction, dense black Indian ink drawings on tracing paper were glued to a thick board lined with white paper and annotated with instructions to the printer. Waterhouse’s drawings are crisp, with the edges of the blackened areas cleanly defined. Tiny corrections made with process white (opaque white pigment first introduced for retouching photographs) are still visible (Figure 9.9). The existence of old paper reproductions in the department indicate that both Anderson and Waterhouse used their own photographs of the objects for their drawings of whole pots. To create freehand drawings of all the catalogued vases would have been unreasonably time-­consuming. Figure  9.10a–­c reveals how photographs provided the basis for the published drawings in the vase catalogue and were reproduced again more selectively in the later CVA volumes that Waterhouse worked on before the Second World War. Scale information on vase illustrations appeared for the first time alongside the photographic images in the 1925 vase catalogue.33 By the time Waterhouse’s successor arrived in 1978 the remit of an illustrator working on Greek pottery had changed completely. 33

  Forsdyke 1925.

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F igure 9.8.  (a) Compass, (b) Line pen, (c) Mapping pen with a Gillott crow quill nib. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Susan Bird (1978–98) When Sue Bird joined the department as a part-­time graphics officer, she brought with her a full set of techniques that she had learned while working on archaeological excavations. In the years since the war, the archaeological landscape had changed. During the 1960s and 1970s, ‘New Archaeology’ had introduced a unified system of description and recording,34 and as early as the 1950s, archaeologists and the illustrators working with them had begun to adopt—­from en­gin­eers, architects, surveyors, botanical illustrators, and artists—­graphic conventions that suited the needs of the discipline. Now rules guided the layout and   Dyson 2006: 236–45.

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F igure 9.9.  Detail of a drawing by Waterhouse, showing Indian ink applied with a line pen and fine brush. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

F igure 9.10a.  Departmental archival print of a pottery bowl with a horizontal lug handle and spout of a type known as ‘Melian bowl’. From Phylakopi. H 7.62 cm. BM 1903,0716.33 (Vase A353). © The Trustees of the British Museum. F igure 9.10b.  Waterhouse’s line drawing in Forsdyke 1925. © The Trustees of the British Museum. F igure 9.10c.  The drawing overlies the photographic image perfectly. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

style of presentation, and the growing number of rescue excavations required archaeologists to publish field reports with increasingly standardized views, including elevations, plans, and sections. The drawing office in the Department of Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings (part of the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works) was formed in response to this new demand and played a key role in shaping the visual language of archaeological illustration. Illustrators working in London at the Ancient Monuments office, the British Museum, the Museum of London, and the

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Institute of Archaeology at the University of London were a diverse group but nevertheless were aware of, and influenced by, each other’s work. Waterhouse’s drawing style was initially widely accepted but, as a simpler linear style emerged, his drawings were regarded as rather bland, if not obsolete.35 At the same time, a set of unifying principles for ‘archaeological illustration’ had gradually developed and were now taught at universities in newly founded archaeology departments.36 The teaching was often delivered by archaeologists, some of whom published guides on archaeological illustration.37 This new approach to object drawing is reflected in Bird’s work for the CVA volume of 1993.38 Information on the vessels is presented in the minimalist style stipulated by the CVA editorial guidelines which stressed the importance of sectional drawings.39 The profile of the vessel shape, rather than its decoration, is the dominant feature. As a result, accurate reproduction of the outlines of pot shapes determined the drawing method (Figure 9.11). A strong, smooth outline was the key to the success of such drawings because the virtuoso throwing skill of the potter needed to be shown in that line. One reviewer commented that this volume ‘provides the now customary illustrations and drawings to an extremely high standard: the profile drawings demonstrate with admirable clarity the skeuomorphic details of junctions, rings and grooves’.40 Consistent line weight and layout allow the vase wall thicknesses and the vase shapes to be compared with one another. To produce such a drawing, the pot has to be carefully measured at regular latitudinal intervals so that the delicate curvature of the surface can be replicated on paper. However, Bird’s pencil working drawings (e.g. Figure 9.12) show few tell-­tale measurement marks (pencil dots). A jagged profile line resulting from the use of a profile gauge can be seen on some of her drawings. This tool, if used carefully by pushing the teeth against the pot surface, can produce excellent results. It was clearly used by Bird for some but not all the lines in her drawings. I thus looked for other, alternative methods for reproducing pot profiles. A technique unknown to me in anything but the vaguest sense is shown in Figure 9.13a–­c. Thanks to advice from my British Museum illustrator colleague Claire Thorne, who remembers having used this equipment to draw exceptionally delicate glass objects, I was able to test the process. The necessary equipment   Dobie and Evans 2010: 5–7.   Anecdotal information provided by a Cardiff alumnus who attended the university in the 1960s. 37 38   Piggott 1965; Hope-­Taylor 1966, 1967; Brodribb 1970.   Williams 1993. 39   Guidelines for ensuring a consistent appearance for CVA authors were initially recorded in the publication of the second Paris conference in 1921; see Rouet 2001: 127–37. Guidelines for illustration are now available at www.cvaonline.org. 40   Vickers 1994: 460–1. 35 36

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F igure 9.11.  Bird’s profile drawings of Attic red-­figure cups in CVA British Museum 9 (Williams 1993), fig. 5. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

comprises: a strong light source, in this case an Aldis slide projector;41 a glass screen with a wood frame; tracing paper and a pencil. The projector needs to be positioned at sufficient distance from the screen and vase for a focused image to be projected onto the glass window (Figure 9.13a). Tracing paper is taped to the side of the glass facing away from the light in order to capture a strong projected outline (Figure  9.13b). A distance of 3.5 metres created the clear profile shown in Figure 9.13c. The projector and vase should be level with each other.

41

  This Aldis Aldisette 2, 35 mm projector was manufactured 1952–5.

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F igure 9.12.  A pencil drawing of the profile and section of an Athenian red-­figure cup (BM 1843,1103.44, Vase E62). The jagged line of the internal vase wall suggests that a profile gauge was used to obtain the precise curvature. The clean external profile lines indicate the use of a projected image. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

F igure 9.13a–­c.  An experiment using a forged red-­figure calyx krater (BM 2003,1002.1). While Bird would most likely have set up her equipment on tables, for the sake of convenience, the spacious basement floor gave me room to experiment. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

My experiment revealed that once the equipment is set up, the drawing process is quick and accurate. Once the vase outline was drawn on tracing paper, Bird transferred the ­drawing to smooth white paper or draft film for inking.42 Various techniques can be used for this image transfer: (1) a rubbing technique, using graphite or jewellers rouge;43 (2) tracing the lines on a light box; (3) a Grant Projector. This type of projector became an essential piece of equipment after its introduction into drawing offices in the 1950s (Figure 9.14). Bird had such a projector in her office; the last one to remain in the museum was removed around 2005. This device 42   Draft film is still used today by site archaeologists and illustrators, since its smooth surface provides a sturdier medium to draw on than tracing paper and supports smooth ink lines. 43   A fine ferric oxide powder that leaves an easily removable faint sepia line. I have used it as an alternative to graphite when ‘working lines’ need to be removed but an eraser is liable to damage the opacity of the ink lines.

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Standard Projector

HOOD VIEWING AND SCREEN FOCUSING

COPYBOARD CONTROL

LENS CONTROL LIGHTING BOWL ON LENS CARRIER WEIGHTS ON CHAIN

STOOL

COPYBOARD

F igure 9.14.  Photograph of the Standard Grant Projector in the assembly and instruction manual. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

permitted images to be scaled up or down by projecting the image of a working drawing from the copy board via an adjustable lens onto a viewing screen. Using another sheet of translucent paper and a ruler to regulate scale, the new image could be traced on the viewing screen. The device is in effect a large inverted camera obscura. Bird’s use of electrical equipment raised the question of how such vase profiles were produced for earlier publications. D’Hancarville had already provided measured profile drawings of selected vases by the mid eighteenth century,44 and roughly a century later the drawings by the trained architect Albert Genick presented precise elevation views of vessels and their decoration.45 Optical instruments such as the camera obscura and the camera lucida were adopted by artists on the Grand Tour in the nineteenth century to capture   See N. Dietrich and M. Gaifman in this volume.

44

  See also A. Tsingarida in this volume.

45

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ac­cur­ate images of monuments and landscapes, and the relative merits of both instruments have been discussed in art historical and archaeological contexts.46 However, it is less clear how such instruments would have helped early illustrators to draw elevation views of vases to scale. As early prototypes of the box-­type camera obscura existed in the mid eighteenth century,47 it is possible that d’Hancarville’s draughtsmen could have made use of optical projections to draw vase profiles. The later invention, the camera lucida, first appeared on the market in 1807.48 Both instruments appear in a supplement to the journal Scientific American in January 1879, along with thirteen other ‘Aids to the Art of Drawing’ and up-­beat descriptions of how each instrument might be employed.49 However, according to more recent accounts both instruments present problems when an accurate and undistorted drawing is required. Firstly, the image that appeared on the two-­dimensional drawing surface was dim, and, in the case of the camera lucida, unstable. The camera lucida in particular was difficult to master because the projected image disappeared if the viewer’s head moved, thereby requiring quick notation of the view.50 Secondly, the projected image was small, therefore requiring the draughtsperson to draw the object in sections. This is less than ideal when a smooth uninterrupted line was an essential feature of the drawing. For copying details of vase painting, a camera lucida could have been useful, but neither instrument seems likely as a way of visualizing the whole vase. A more up-­to-­date solution was offered by R. M. Cook, who suggested the use of a long-­focus lens to photograph the pot at a distance of thirty or more times the diameter of the pot.51 He also suggested the use of a ‘copy-­frame, with one arm touching the profile of the pot and the other tracing an outline on a vertical board’.52 Today digital photographs of vases can be imported into image processing software, rectified to fit known dimensions and traced on screen.

Candida Lonsdale (1999–2000) Bird’s successor, Candida Lonsdale, arrived in the department with design and illustration experience. Although she was only in post for a short time, she produced the drawings for fascicule 10 of the British Museum CVA.53 Her task was to help the authors to present fragments of broken vases from William Hamilton’s   Hammond and Austin 1987: 89–110; Hammond 1981: 40–70; Fiorentini 2006; Hockney 2001. 48   Hammond 1981: 71–103.   Hammond and Austin 1987: 3–28. 49   Anonymous 1879: 2505–7. 50   Hammond and Austin 1987: 81; Hockney 2001: 12; Fiorentini 2006: 34. 51   Cook 1960: 285. 52   Cook 1960: 284. It is not clear from this description what the copy frame looks like or how it was employed. 53   Smallwood and Woodford 2003. 46 47

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F igure 9.15.  The curvature of individual fragments and the pictorial design were used to propose a cross section of the whole vessel, an Attic red-­figure pelike (BM 2000,1101.26). © The Trustees of the British Museum.

second collection of vases, which had been smashed when the ship that carried it, HMS Colossus, sank in 1798, en route from Naples. Partial recovery of the vases in the 1970s created an opportunity to reassemble the sherds and identify individual items with the help of Tischbein’s engravings. Lonsdale’s drawing methods were similar to those used by her predecessors, except that the drawing of each fragment required careful positioning in order to convey the vessel’s overall pictorial design (Figure 9.15). Her drawings visualize the vases that are too badly broken to be reconstructed by conservators but contain enough tiny clues to connect fragments to each other. While these fragments are today stored in the museum basement in formless plastic bags on trays, the drawings help to convey their original shape.

Kate Morton (2000–) ‘Hey! What are you going to do today, Kate? Dot-­to-­dot, tracing, or colouring in?’ a museum colleague used to ask as I sat at my desk in my new role. I realize now how appropriate this question was, summing up the process of drawing a Greek vase. Having learned how to illustrate archaeological material at the drawing office of the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission (English Heritage) and on site, I was familiar with the drawing conventions used in image making and the type of information that archaeologists and museum specialists expect to see in a drawing. However, I was not familiar with Greek vases. The first opportunity I had to look carefully at a Greek vase came when I was asked to make a leaving card for Lucilla Burn, curator in the department from 1985 to 2001. Having

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been advised that a Greek vase would make an appropriate subject, I started to look at exhibits in the galleries—­this turned out to be a revelation. At art school in the 1980s, Classical Art was consigned to the Art History component of the course and touched on only fleetingly. As an archaeology student I never had reason, or encouragement, to study Greek vases. What I had failed to notice, therefore, was the brilliance of the craftspeople who created the vase forms and decorated their surfaces with such assurance; I had failed to see that Greek vases contain master classes in line quality, life drawing, and pictorial composition. Since 2000 I have been asked to draw Greek vases for a number of catalogues and research publications. The nature of the drawing project depends on the pot type, its condition, the research focus, and the purpose of the illustration. The drawings produced by my predecessors in the department were products of a pre-­digital age, and I had to adapt to the new computerized system of working. Despite technological changes, however, the techniques of the past that I have described above are still applicable today and it is up to the individual illustrator to decide which parts of the drawing process to ‘digitize’—digital technology has introduced new methods of doing the same thing. Perhaps there has been an assumption along with these developments that a vase can be drawn more quickly using graphics software, but in my experience digital graphics are just as time-­ consuming as hand-­drawn images. Moreover, many of the mechanical reprographic processes between illustrator and book production, which my predecessors needed to be familiar with, have been eliminated. This gives the illustrator more control over the final output—­but also more work. The digital vector drawing tool can render the outline of a pot profile more smoothly than the human hand, even with the aid of a template; on the other hand, the digital tool copes less well when a fine line drawing is required to describe a subtle plastic form or replicate the nuanced trail of the brush stroke. Whichever technique is used, the high quality of craftsmanship embedded in a Greek vase challenges the illustrator to produce a well-­crafted and aesthetically pleasing image that does justice to the object it represents. The process of drawing is a way of seeing and understanding—­it is a process that still starts with the ‘thinking stick’ (pencil) and ends with a digital file that can be printed on paper or viewed on screen.

M Y PR ACT ICE A S A N I L LUST R ATOR

Before the pencil hits the paper, decisions need to be made. Greek vases contain a finite amount of visual information that can be visualized in an infinite number of ways. It is therefore essential at the start of any project to decide which details

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are important and which can be left out. The illustrator becomes the conduit conveying specialist insight to the printed page in a way that should be clear and easy to understand. By establishing a hierarchy of information, the most im­port­ ant elements can be highlighted, and close collaboration with the commissioner is key to this process. Decisions about style and content are often influenced by finance: that is, by the illustrator’s time and the printing costs. Such calculations are nothing new: the authors of past publications have mentioned and bemoaned the funding issues that affected the quality and number of illustrations ac­com­ pany­ing their texts.54 Digital printing has revolutionized the construction of documents, offering opportunities to integrate photographs and line drawings with text more cheaply, but the size and layout of the print publication is still determined by practical considerations concerning paper quality, printing technique, and binding. Print on demand and online publication keep costs down, but costs still vary when illustrations are included. As in the past, illustrators can offer suggestions early in the publication planning stage about how illustrations can be used and which style will be the most economical to employ. I call this ‘the book backwards approach’ and believe that it is a good way to reconcile initial expectations with the inevitable budgetary constraints. My work on Greek vases for the department falls into three categories: (1) profile drawings of whole pots; (2) reconstruction drawings of pot forms using pot sherds; (3) reconstruction drawings of vase decoration, when the vase surface has degraded to such an extent that the imagery is obscured. Unlike the work of Anderson, Waterhouse, and Bird, which aimed to describe to the viewer what exists (vase shape and decorated surface), I am usually asked to visualize what has been lost—­painted scenes are revealed, broken vase walls bonded, vase shapes reformed, invisible sections reconstructed, and fragments reunited after years of separation in different collections. Over the past fifty years there has been discussion within the archaeological community about how best to present pots in drawings. Books have been published to encourage a disparate graphics workforce producing ceramics illustrations to standardize their techniques. Excellent information is now available in print and online, giving step-­by-­step information on how to measure and draw ceramic vessels.55

  Smallwood and Woodford 2003: 12–14 (Hamilton and Tischbein); Kurtz 1983: 6 (Beazley); Payne 1931: 354; Caskey 1922: vii–­viii. 55   Adkins and Adkins 1989: 164–75; Griffiths, Jenner, and Wilson 1990: 51–88; Collett 2017. 54

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Profile Drawings of Whole Vases Figure 9.16 shows some of the options for presenting information about a vase. Just as in Anderson and Waterhouse’s day, there is no point in spending time drawing when a photograph will do, but a vase can be described well by integrating line drawings with photographic images. In this case both image types must abide by the underlying principles of archaeological illustration. These stipulate that: the object is presented in orthographic projections (i.e. plans and elevations on horizontal or vertical planes); the relationship between all views must be clear; all elements of a drawing should be accompanied by linear scale information; and the illustration should contain sectional information. A drawing should be a portable version of the real object that is measurable and accurate. By abiding by widely accepted drawing conventions (line weight, line structure, shading technique, annotation) illustrators can produce consistent information that allows comparisons to be made for typological research. A drawing must therefore be ‘readable’; as Piggott stated in 1965: ‘Archaeological draughtsmanship

plan detail section drawing with photo

0

section drawing with integrated photo

0

2cm

plan, section and elevation without decoration

2cm

0

2cm

0

2cm

section and elevation with ‘rolled out’ decoration

2cm

elevation showing the sherd outlines when the profile has been reconstructed

0

section and elevation showing decoration

0

2cm

colour reconstruction with section

0

2cm

F igure 9.16.  Different presentations of the same skyphos place emphasis on different elements of the object’s characteristics. The line on the central vertical axis separates information about the exterior of the cup in an elevation view on the right from sectional and interior information on the left. Additional plan views and sections provide detail about the manufacture of the vase. The item shown is the forged red-­figure skyphos BM 1978,0323.1. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

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involves the construction of technical cryptograms and, as in all ciphers, these must be made according to the rules carefully observed by both transmitter and recipient.’56 A systematic approach, guided by the principles outlined, directed the drawing process of a number of large Italian vases from the British Museum collection. The emphasis was to be placed on the pot morphology, looking particularly for clues about the way the vessel had been constructed (Figures 9.17a and 9.17b). For this type of project I need to think about the making process and how the potter threw, turned, and assembled the different parts of the vase. Schreiber’s Athenian Vase Construction: A Potter’s Analysis is an invaluable source of relevant information and reminds me to think about the constraints of working with clay, the way that hands can shape clay, and the effects of kiln firing.57 I am also reminded that equipment used by illustrators to make drawings originate in the pottery workshop; all of the tools used in the measuring process (Figure 9.18) are used by potters. Once the measuring is done and the resulting points joined in ‘dot-­to-­dot’ fashion, the pencil is used to draw smooth outlines. When vases

F igure 9.17a.  Measurements recorded at 1:2 scale were cross-­checked to reproduce a red-­figure Lucanian nestoris BM 1865,0103.17 (Vase F176). The size of the vessel required a large working area and measuring tools. The working drawings are covered in numbers and thumbnails sketches. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

56

  Piggott 1965: 165.

57

  Schreiber 1998.

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F igure 9.17b.  Digital drawings nearing completion at the ‘layout’ stage produced in order to check the consistency of style. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

F igure 9.18.  Set square, dividers, bent-­leg caliper, sticks, vernier caliper, ruler, and profile gauge. The illustrator carries the measurements settled upon by the potter to the page, to build the pot once more, albeit in two-­dimensional form. The skyphos is the same as that shown in Figure 9.16 (BM 1978,0323.1). © The Trustees of the British Museum.

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F igure 9.19 a–­b.  A bucchero hydria BM 1873,0820.356 (Vase H208). a) Hand inked using a dip pen and a Rotring rapidograph. b) Digitally ‘inked’ using Adobe Illustrator. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

include applied decoration, like the handles of the nestoris in Figure 9.17 or the figurative decoration on a bucchero hydria shown in Figure 9.19,58 the process of drawing deviates from technical to measured observational drawing: here carefully placed lines describe form, with the conventional shadow cast by a light source from the top left-­hand side. Next, the ‘inking’ process (manual or digital) ensures that a drawing clearly reproduces its subject at a reduced scale. During this stage regional and institutional stylistic variations become most obvious. Nowadays it is usual for a pencil drawing to be scanned and imported into a vector graphics package, traced, layered to separate different types of information, and exported in a format that conforms to the publisher’s house style. Some illustrators use a stipple technique (fine scattering of dots) to create shadow while others use linear shading, but usually the shading style is minimalist compared to the highly worked representations of the past. As I was trained to use a minimum of marks to suggest form, the formation of the line to suggest volume becomes critical. The inking of the lines in the drawing of the bucchero hydria (Figure 9.19a) was done with a fine dip pen nib on Frisk CS10 paper.59 In more recent work I have begun to aim for the same line style using digital brush tools in Adobe Illustrator (Figure 9.19b). When a pencil drawing is imported onto a zoomable digital art board, the digital layers take the place of tracing paper overlays. Consequently the sticky tapes, pins, ink splats, and time-­consuming edits are eliminated, along with the phys­ic­al­ity   Perkins 2007: 107.   I have always favoured the Gillott Crow Quill 659 nib. CS10 is no longer available but used to be the paper of choice for final artwork. It was transparent when placed on a light box and had an extra smooth surface that allowed for unwanted lines to be scratched out with a scalpel blade, burnished smooth, and drawn over. 58 59

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of this part of the drawing process. By tracing with a Wacom interactive pen and tablet, the eye follows the line on the screen and while the advantage is that every digital mark is easily edited, the disadvantage is that each digital line thickness needs to be selected—­which takes more time than manually varying the line thickness by applying more pressure to a pen stroke.

Reconstruction Drawings of Pot Forms Using Pot Sherds It could be argued that a pot sherd is one of the richest sources of information on ancient ceramics because of the high-­value information it holds.60 Accurate schematic visualization of rims and bases of domestic and fine wares (which often reveal the type of vessel they come from) is therefore one of the most important graphic products for ceramic research. This is one of the most repetitive and technical pottery-­related tasks that I am required to do. But keeping in mind that each tiny fragment can help researchers build explanatory narratives, I know how exacting I must be in my visualization of each item. If a researcher with specialist knowledge of Greek vases collaborates with a conservator and an illustrator, much can be deduced about the appearance of a vase before years of ‘archaeological formation processes’ affected its shape and decoration. Figure 9.20 shows an example of an unpromising group of recently 1924,1201.1174 Corinthian cup Naukratis

scar for handle

uncertain angle. Modelled on 1924,1201.1205 no join to 1924,1201.1199 30cm

0

5cm

no scar for foot

ring diam c 12

F igure 9.20.  It was possible to reconstruct the shape of this Archaic Corinthian kylix but not the foot or the handles. The handles were hinted at by adding tone to an area that was interpreted as the residual scar. BM 1924,1201.1174. © The Trustees of the British Museum.   Stamatopoulos and Anagnostopoulos 2016.

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glued sherds providing enough information to allow a two-­dimensional reconstruction of this Corinthian kylix. Linear features like the horizontal incised decorative and throwing lines allowed me to orientate the conjoined fragments. By placing a profile gauge against the interior wall on a horizontal plane, a tentative dimension was obtained. Careful analysis of the incised and painted lines to see where they stop, trail off, or overlay each other permits reconstruction of the bands of animals decorating the surface; a ×10 magnifying glass and much holding of breath to steady the hand help the processes of looking and drawing. This absorbing search for clues takes far longer than the drawing and connects me to my predecessors. The first draft invariably comes back from the specialist covered in red pen because the elusive paintwork has been interpreted in a different way by an eye versed in academic approaches to the material—­and I feel I am back at school. Nevertheless the detective work, exchange of proposals, and rigorous correcting are essential stages. The dangers of careless or all too creative reconstruction by conservators and illustrators are well understood.61

Reconstruction Drawings of the Vase Decoration If preservation of the decoration allows it, reconstruction of important painted scenes can be attempted in full colour or tonal illustrations (Figure  9.21a–­f). In order to ‘read’ the painted and incised surface, I need to explore its degradation in relation to its sequence of applied lines. The interpretive level (or ‘colouring in’ stage) can be aided by reference to comparanda that provide information on colour choice and completion of decorative elements.

F I NA L T HOUGH TS

In this chapter I have confined my discussion to the visualization of Greek vases in the British Museum and concentrated on processes carried out by line illustrators who have had close engagement with its vase collection. There is still a dispersed (but not large) group of illustrators working on other collections of material in similar ways to those described and who are, no doubt, faced with the same budgetary constraints of old. While the value of a line drawing is still obvious, the role of that drawing is often demoted to providing supplementary information next to the main photographic image. While portable cameras and scanners have made images easy to reproduce, it has never been easier to disseminate those images to a wide online audience. However, a new problem has emerged thanks to this ease of transfer. The standard of reproduction is usually high in hard copy volumes; however, online and digital articles often privilege the text and, as a 61

  Villing 2014.

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(b)

(e)

(c)

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F igure 9.21a.  Side ‘a’ of the partially reconstructed East Greek black-­figure situla from Tell Dafana. H 53.6 cm. 575–550 bc. BM 1888,0208.1 (Vase B104). © The Trustees of the British Museum. F igure 9.21b.  High-­resolution digital photograph that can be manipulated in Photoshop to improve the visibility of key decorative elements. © The Trustees of the British Museum. F igure 9.21c.  An acetate tracing of the immediately visible lines acts as a guide for the precise placement of digital lines. © The Trustees of the British Museum. F igure 9.21d.  Digital tracing of the outlines of elusive paint remains. The photograph is adjusted to match the guide lines. © The Trustees of the British Museum. F igure 9.21e.  After a number of revisions, a line drawing of the remaining decoration can be produced. © The Trustees of the British Museum. F igure 9.21f.  A colour reconstruction is created using patches of remaining paint and comparanda as guides. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

result, line drawings appear on screen as pixelated thumbnails. Illustrators strive to create informative, well-­crafted, and attractive drawings, but a line drawing is only as good as its reproduction and therefore needs careful handling if it is to be useful and worth the outlay. Moreover, the purpose of each drawing is specific to its research context. If accompanying text information is lost during the image’s digital transfer, there is a danger that drawings are misused and misinterpreted.

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In an ideal world, information that records the origin, methodology, and authorship would be embedded in each digital drawing. As a result of changing printing methods and advanced software capabilities, new styles of presentation have emerged. Now a sectional drawing of a sherd can be used to reconstruct whole pot shapes virtually using three-­ dimensional ­modelling software; CT scans have been used to create profile drawings; while three-­dimensional scanning and texture mapping of decorated surfaces offer exciting opportunities in educational and exhibition contexts. These digital practices are far removed from the manual methods of the past, but they remain part of the same process of visualization. Illustrators, therefore, now have a wide range of digital skills to bring to a commission, while commissioners have a wide range of options for image use. Furthermore, if a high standard of output is to be maintained, passing on both manual and digital skills in formal training is essential. As Simon James points out, archaeology is a visual discipline and ‘visual competence’ in a digital era needs to be nurtured.62 Since my predecessors at the British Museum made the most of the technological advances of their era, it seems important to record how they worked, the skills they possessed, and the contribution they made to the study of Greek vases so that their images can still be understood and appreciated in the future.

BI BL IOGR A PH Y A Guide to the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the British Museum. 1899. (London: British Museum). A dkins , L., and R. A dkins . 1989. Archaeological Illustration (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). A nonymous . 1879. ‘Aids to the Art of Drawing’, Scientific American Supplement 7.158 (11 January): 2005–7. A nonymous . 1887. Manual of Art, or Profit and Pastime. https://archive.org/details/ ladiesmanualofar00donoiala. B eazley , J. D. 1910. ‘Kleophrades’, Journal of Hellenistic Studies 30: 38–68. B eazley , J. D., and D. C. K urtz . 1989. Greek Vases: Lectures by J. D. Beazley (Oxford: Clarendon Press). B rodribb , A.  C.  C. 1970. Drawing Archaeological Finds for Publication (London: J. Baker). C askey , L.  D. 1922. Geometry of Greek Vases: Attic Vases in the Museum of Fine Arts Analysed According to the Principles of Proportion Discovered by Jay Hambidge (Boston, MA: Museum of Fine Arts).

  James 2015: 1189–202.

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C ollett , L. 2017. Introduction to Drawing Archaeological Pottery. CIfA Professional Practice Paper (Reading: Chartered Institute for Archaeologists). C ook , R. M. 1960. Greek Painted Pottery (London: Methuen & Co.). D obie , J., and C. E vans . 2010. Archaeology and Illustrators: A History of the Ancient Monuments Drawing Office (Portsmouth: English Heritage). D yson , S. L. 2006. In Pursuit of Ancient Pasts: A History of Classical Archaeology in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (London: Yale University Press). F iorentini , E. 2006. Camera Obscura vs. Camera Lucida: Distinguishing Early Nineteenth Century Modes of Seeing (Berlin: Max Planck Institute for the History of Science). F orsdyke , E. J. 1925. Catalogue of the Greek and Etruscan Vases in the British Museum, Vol. 1: Part 1: Prehistoric Aegean Pottery (London: British Museum). G riffiths , N., A. J enner , and C. W ilson . 1990. Drawing Archaeological Finds: A Handbook. Occasional Paper of the Institute of Archaeology, University College London 13 (London: Archetype Publications). H all , L.  F. 1936 ‘Notes on the Drawings’, in G.  M.  A Richter (ed.), Red-Figured Athenian Vases in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art), vii–­x. H ammond , J. 1981. The Camera Obscura: A Chronicle (Bristol: Hilger). H ammond , J., and J.  A ustin . 1987. The Camera Lucida in Art and Science (Bristol: IOP). H arrison , J.  E., and D.  S.  M ac C oll . 1894. Greek Vase Paintings: A Selection of Examples, with Preface, Introduction and Descriptions (London: T. Fisher Unwin). H ockney , D. 2001. Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters (London: Thames and Hudson). H ope -T aylor , B. 1966. ‘Archaeological Draughtsmanship: Principles and Practice. Part II: Ends and Means’, Antiquity 40.158: 107–13. H ope -T aylor , B. 1967. ‘Archaeological Draughtsmanship: Principles and Practice. Part III: Lines of Communication’, Antiquity 41.163: 181–9. J ames , S. 2015. ‘Visual Competence in Archaeology: A Problem Hiding in Plain Sight’, Antiquity 89: 1189–202. J enkins , I., and K.  S loan . 1996. Vases and Volcanoes: Sir William Hamilton and His Collection (London: British Museum Press). K urtz , D. C. 1983. The Berlin Painter (Oxford: Clarendon). M oser , S. 2012. ‘Archaeological Visualization: Early Artifact Illustration and the Birth of the Archaeological Image’, in I. Hodder (ed.), Archaeological Theory Today (Cambridge: Polity Press), 292–322. M oser , S. 2014. ‘Making Expert Knowledge through the Image: Connections between Antiquarian and Early Modern Scientific Illustration’, Isis 105.1: 58–99. M urray , A. S. 1894. Designs from Greek Vases in the British Museum (London: British Museum). M urray , A. S., and A. H. S mith . 1896. White Athenian Vases in the British Museum (London: British Museum). P ayne , H. 1931. Necrocorinthia: A Study of Corinthian Art in the Archaic Period (Oxford: Clarendon).

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P erkins , P. 2007. Etruscan Bucchero in the British Museum. British Museum Research Publication 165 (London: British Museum). P iggott , S. 1965. ‘Archaeological Draughtsmanship: Principles and Practice. Part I: Principles and Retrospect’, Antiquity 39: 165–76. R ouet , P. 2001. Approaches to the Study of Attic Vases: Beazley and Pottier (Oxford: Oxford University Press). S chreiber , T. 1998. Athenian Vase Construction: A Potter’s Analysis (Malibu, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum). S mallwood , V., and S. W oodford . 2003. Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum: Great Britain, Fascicule 20, The British Museum, Fascicule 10 (London: British Museum Press). S mith , A.  H. 1895. ‘The Cyclograph’, Photographic Journal 35 (30 May): 252–61. https://archive.rps.org/archive/volume-35/720674?q=the%20cyclograph. S mith , C. H. 1896. Catalogue of the Greek and Etruscan Vases in the British Museum, Volume 3: Vases of the Finest Period (London: British Museum). S tamatopoulos , M., and C.-N. A nagnostopoulos . 2016. ‘3D Digital Reassembling of  Archaeological Ceramic Pottery Fragments Based on Their Thickness Profile’, https://arxiv.org/search/?query=3D+digital+reassembling+of+archaeological+ cer­am­ic+pottery+fragments+based+on+their+thickness+profile.&searchtype=all&sou rce=header. T ischbein , W. 1956. Aus meinem Leben (Berlin: Henschelverlag). V ickers , M. 1994. Review of Williams, D. 1993. Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum: Great Britain, Fascicule 17, The British Museum, Fascicule 9 (London: British Museum Press), in Antiquity 68: 460–1. V illing , A. 2014. ‘Dangerous Perfection and an Old Puzzle Resolved: A ‘New’ Apulian Krater Inspired by Euripides’ Antiope’, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 57: 61–78. V on B othmer , D. 1983 ‘The Execution of the Drawings’, in D.  C.  Kurtz (ed.), The Berlin Painter (Oxford: Clarendon), 6–8. W alter , C. 2008. ‘Towards a More “Scientific” Archaeological Tool: The Accurate Drawing of Greek Vases between the End of the Nineteenth and the First Half of the Twentieth Centuries’, in N. Schlanger and J. Nordbladh (eds), Archives, Ancestors, Practices: Archaeology in the Light of its History (New York: Berghahn), 179–90. W alters , H. B. 1893. Catalogue of the Greek and Etruscan Vases in the British Museum, Vol. 2: Black-Figured Vases (London: British Museum). W alters , H. B. 1896. Catalogue of the Greek and Etruscan Vases in the British Museum, Vol. 4: The Vases of the Later Period (London: British Museum). W alters , H. B. 1905. History of Ancient Pottery Greek, Etruscan, and Roman: Based on the Work of Samual Birch (London: John Murray). W alters , H. B. 1912. Catalogue of the Greek and Etruscan Vases in the British Museum, Vol. 1: Part II: Cypriot, Italian and Etruscan Pottery (London: British Museum). W illiams , D. 1993. Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum: Great Britain, Fascicule 17, The British Museum, Fascicule 9 (London: British Museum Press). W ilson , D. M. 2002. The British Museum: A History (London: British Museum Press).

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10

Drawing vs Photography On the Gains and Losses of Technical Innovation Nikolaus Dietrich

This paper offers a critical comparison between drawing and today’s leading medium for representing Greek vases, photography.1,  2 The main criterion of comparison is the extent to which either medium has the ability to reproduce what a painted Greek vase is. Given that there cannot be any complete reproduction of a three-­dimensional object through a two-­dimensional medium, I first explore what aspects of the depicted object get lost in photography, while being (potentially) preserved in drawing, and vice versa. From this theoretical approach to the potential benefits of either medium, I then turn to a set of examples of vase photography in academic publications and explore what has actually been done with the new medium. A special focus is put on early examples, when drawing and photography still existed side by side. In a short conclusion, I examine how the mutual influence of specific scholarly interests in Greek vases and the ways these vases were represented in the context of changing technical means shaped the kind of standardized vase publication (such as the Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum (CVA) fascicles and monographs on individual vase painters); and finally, I examine   I would like to thank Wolfgang Filser for the discussions we had on archaeology and photography, a topic that he knows much better than I do, and for his help with this paper. 2   On early photography as a medium of archaeological illustration, see in general e.g. Schubert and Grunauer-­von Hoerschelmann 1978; Gimon 1980; Collet 1996; Shanks 1997; Brinkmann 2001; Lindner 1999; Hubner 2004; Alexandridis and Heilmeyer 2004; Lyons et al. 2005; Marcoci 2010: 41; Bohrer 2011; Klamm 2007 and 2017; Dally 2017; Filser 2017a and 2017b. Scholarly interest is especially focused on early topographical archaeology. When it comes to object photography, ancient sculpture is the prime topic of interest (see Klamm 2007, on the concurrence between drawing and photography). On the photographic documentation of painted vases, see Lissarrague 2015: 237–8. 1

Nikolaus Dietrich, Drawing vs Photography: On the Gains and Losses of Technical Innovation In: Drawing the Greek Vase. Edited by: Caspar Meyer and Alexia Petsalis-­Diomidis, Oxford University Press. © Caspar Meyer and Alexia Petsalis-­Diomidis 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192856128.003.0010

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how the changing technical means of representation influenced the kinds of questions dealt with in the scholarship on Greek vases. In order to answer my first question concerning the aspects of a vase that are lost or conserved in drawings or photographs, I ought, in principle, to begin with a definition of what we might consider as the most important aspects of a painted Greek vase. Obviously, there cannot be a univocal answer to this initial question, for different ways of describing, commenting on, and depicting Greek vases in scholarly literature provide us with numerous, divergent answers as to what might be important about a painted Greek vase. These numerous answers evidently show that what is important about a Greek vase depends on one’s specific interests. This is obviously true for the etic perspective of scholarly research, and to a lesser extent, this is also true for the emic perspective of ancient users and viewers of Greek vases. Indeed, different aspects of the same painted Attic cup would gain particular prominence depending on whether this cup was used in an Athenian symposion, dedicated as a votive gift in a sanctuary, or exported to Etruria. There cannot be an absolute answer to the question about what aspects really matter in a Greek vase. Consequently, in the discussion below about what is lost and what is preserved in drawing or photographing a vase, the answer will not be more than an enumeration of different aspects, without any claim of completeness.

A SPECTS OF GR EEK VA SE S T H AT A R E PR E SERV ED I N DR AW I NG S BU T L OST I N PHOTOGR A PHS

Differences in Size Lavish nineteenth-­ century vase drawings are often found in books of truly ­enormous size. This is the case, for example, with Eduard Gerhard’s Apulische Vasenbilder des Königlichen Museums zu Berlin from 1845, measuring 73 cm in height (Figure 10.1).3 This very large size has to do with the function of such   This publication mainly includes a group of Apulian vases from the collection of the Austrian diplomat Baron Franz von Koller, purchased in 1828 for the Royal Museum in Berlin by the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III. On this collection and Gerhard’s publication, see most recently M. Dufková and U. Kästner in Kästner and Saunders 2016: 21–41; on Gerhard’s publication, see esp. pp. 30, 35–6, and 135–7. The origin of these vases was traced to Ceglie del Campo (south of Bari) by U. Kästner. The hydria depicted in Figure 1 is now in the Altes Museum in Berlin (Berlin, Antikensammlung F 3290; attributed to the Chamay Painter; height: 57.5 cm; see most recently Kästner and Saunders 2016: cat. no. 12, 144–9 [U. Kästner]). The hydria had obviously been heavily overpainted in the nineteenth century. The chromolithographs in Gerhard 1845 were made by the Berlin engraver L. Steffen on the basis of original drawings commissioned by Gerhard in Italy in 1825, probably by a draughtsperson called Rossi (see M. Dufková and U. Kästner in Kästner and Saunders 2016: 30 and 35). On the many drawings 3

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F igure 10.1.  Plate XIII (72 × 62 cm) from E. Gerhard, Apulische Vasenbilder des Königlichen Museums zu Berlin (Berlin, 1845): Apulian red-­figure hydria (Berlin, Antikensammlung F 3290).

publications as ‘Vorlegeblätter’ (presentation sheets) in academic teaching before the use of light projection.4 But the primary reason for the size of engravings in this and many other comparable publications is the fact that they were based on drawings which conserved the original size of the figures on the vase.5 Indeed, while there is not the slightest link between the size of a vase and the commissioned by E. Gerhard, collected in the so-­called Gerhard’scher Apparat preserved in the Berlin Antikensammlung, see Kästner 2014: 105–7 (with further references); Stürmer 1997; and the contribution by M.-A. Bernard in this volume. On E. Gerhard, see more generally Jahn 1868; Borbein 1979, 119–25; Wrede 1997; Stürmer 2009; Dally 2017: 52–3; Klamm 2017: 319–21 and 328–31.   Light projection was introduced in academic teaching in Germany in the 1890s by A. Furtwängler. See A. Alexandridis in Alexandridis and Heilmeyer 2004: 15, with note 61; Dally 2017: 56–66. On the development of archaeological illustrations for academic teaching in the nineteenth century, see most recently Klamm 2017: 405–17 (with a focus on sculpture); Dally 2017: 51–66. 5   Significantly, the true-­to-­scale dimension of the drawings or engravings is simply assumed and is not specifically mentioned in Gerhard 1845; this contrasts with the explicit note on the dimensions of vases (see Gerhard 1845: 19, note 1). 4

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size of a printed photograph of that vase, differences of size are often taken into account in the drawing of vases. With photography, the size of the picture is a function of  the standardized size of the book in which the photograph appears—­with drawing, the size of the book is often a function of the size of the drawn vases. Of course, it is possible to adjust the printed photograph’s size to the vase’s size; but the technical procedure of photography—­which relies on the negative as an intermediary—­first erases any differences of size.6 To restore the photographed object’s original size would thus require a ­purposeful decision to do so. Conversely, in the medium of drawing, keeping the original size of the figures is, technically speaking, a logical choice for the draughtsperson since he or she would be able to transcribe the painting on the vase directly onto tracing paper, to take measurements from the vase, etc.7 In the process of printing, the original drawing’s true-­to-­scale size might, of course, be adapted to another (smaller) size to fit the dimensions of the book. But while a true-­to-­scale print of a vase’s photograph needs to have the ‘information’ on the object’s size actively restored, a non-­true-­to-­scale print of a vase’s drawing needs to have the ‘information’ on the object’s size actively erased. However, an important qualification is that the preservation of size in drawings of vases concerns mainly the figures of the vase’s painted decoration, not the vase itself as an object, which in our present ex­ample is depicted on a much smaller scale. The respective technical process involved thus orients drawing towards ­preserving differences of scale between different vases and orients photography towards eliding such differences. Indeed, true-­to-­scale drawings are quite common in early publications, while this concept plays no role in published photo­graphs of vases. This consistency in scale characteristic of vase drawings not only manifests itself in the different degrees of visibility of the drawn figures and ornaments, but also in differences of a more haptic nature: just as a monumental volute crater is heavier and more difficult to handle than a small cup, a large-­ format book such as Gerhard’s Apulische Vasenbilder with drawings of equally monumental Apulian vases is heavier and more difficult to handle than a small paperback.

6  To be precise, the variability of photographic print sizes prevailed only with the introduction of photo­graph­ic film in the 1880s and the general implementation of electric enlargers for printing, as opposed to older techniques based mainly on glass plate negatives and contact copies (where the maximal size of the print was usually limited by the glass plate’s size). 7   The technique of drawing used by Beazley, who applied tracing paper directly on the vase, provides a good example of this. On Beazley’s drawings, see the contributions of A. Tsingarida and C. Meyer in this volume. I would like to thank the organizers of the Oxford ‘Drawing the Greek Vase’ workshop and the Beazley Archive for the opportunity offered to inspect some of his original drawings.

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Drawing and Artistic Effort While it requires approximately the same effort to photograph a carelessly ­executed late black-­figure vase (Figure 10.2)8 as a lavish one by Euphronios, the drawing of a vase by Euphronios requires approximately the same immense effort from the modern draughtsperson as it did from Euphronios himself (Figure 10.3).9

F igure 10.2.  Drawing by F. Lissarrague of an Attic black-­figure oenochoe by the Painter of the Half-­Palmettes (Trieste S 456).

8   Trieste, Museo Civico di Storia ed Arte S 456; Attic black-­figure oenochoe attributed to the Painter of the Half-­Palmettes; height (without handle): 17 cm; CVA Trieste, Museo Civico 1 (1969), III.H.4–5, pls 4.1 and 4.4 4 [B. M. Scarfi]; Lissarrague 1997a: 130–1 (with Figure 10.2); BAPD 8103. 9  Munich, Antikensammlung 8704; Attic red-­figure cup attributed to Euphronios (by signature); diameter: 19.8 cm; ARV2 16.17, 1619; CVA Munich, Antikensammlung 18 (2015), 41–53 (with extensive bibliography), pls 16–21 [E. Böhr]; BAPD 200080. The cup was included in Furtwängler’s Auswahl hervorragender Vasenbilder and published in 1904 with lavish drawings by K. Reichhold (see Figure 10.3): Furtwängler and Reichhold 1904: pl. 22. Throughout this corpus, the drawings are true-­ to-­ scale. Whereas this still went without saying in Gerhard’s Apulische Vasenbilder from 1845, the 1:1 scale is now specially mentioned on the plate, as opposed to the 1:4 scale of the profile drawing seen on the same plate (see Figure 10.3).

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F igure 10.3.  Drawing by R. Reichhold of the famous Geryon cup by Euphronios (Munich, Antikensammlungen 8704) published in Furtwängler and Reichhold’s Auswahl hervorragender Vasenbilder (Munich, 1904).

Hence, due to the technical procedure of reproduction, the splendour of a high-­ quality vase is directly reflected in its drawn reproduction, while photography tends to level all differences of decorative expenditure. Of course, this does not prevent the archaeologist from being aware of such differences in artistic quality. But this awareness loses its importance and is reduced to a matter of methodological choice. It is up to the interpreter whether he or she wants to attach more value to the Euphronios cup seen in Figure 10.3 than to the oinochoe of the Painter of Half-­Palmettes of the Haimon group seen in Figure 10.2. One would hardly claim that this greater openness to different methodological approaches is a drawback of photography. However, concerning the specific question of knowing which aspects of a vase get lost and which aspects are retained by different reproductive procedures, the result is clear: drawing vases preserves differences in the temporal dimensions of craft ex­pend­iture, while photography levels down these differences, just as it does the differences in size.

The Painted Vase as a Three-­Dimensional Object With regard to the other more complex aspects of vase reproductions in two-­ dimensional media, the comparison between drawing and photography is less clear-­cut. This is especially true for the crucial aspect of the vessel’s roundness and the serious consequences that this has for the visibility and perception of its

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decoration.10 At first sight, one might say that this aspect is well reflected in any photograph of a vase, while being concealed in drawings that ‘roll out’ the friezes onto flat paper. But a closer look might bring us to a more nuanced position. While photographs present vases as rounded objects and do not ‘detach’ the picture fields from their material support as drawings do, drawings have other ways of engaging with this aspect of Greek vase painting. Gerhard’s research archive, known as the Gerhard’scher Apparat, contains the drawings of Greek vases which formed the basis of his publications of Greek Vasenbilder;11 it offers many indications of the struggles which the draughtspersons went through in order to render the curved surface of the vases in graphic form.12 Because the convention of showing the images in a rectangular frame was not given up, the drawing often had to pull apart interacting figures in the upper half of the d ­ ec­or­ation, where the picture field on the vase narrows. In these cases, the d ­ raughtsperson marked where the intersection of the figures was originally located, as seen for instance in Figure 10.4a,13 with a curved line marking the position of Geryon’s shield on the vase (Figure 10.4c).14 When such drawings were prepared for publication, these marks were often transferred onto the finished version, as was the case in Figure 10.5.15 Whenever possible, Gerhard decided not to pull apart the figures at all, as was the case in the published reproduction of the amphora showing Geryon (Figure 10.4b). In any case, the necessity of dealing with this problem of geometric projection meant that both the illustrators and their academic patrons remained alert to the curved nature of the vase. Nevertheless, there cannot be any doubt that Gerhard’s primary interest in Greek painted vases was not the decorated object as a whole, but the pictures found on them. This biased view of Greek vases is already palpable in foundational eighteenth-­century volumes on Greek vases such as Baron d’Hancarville’s

10   On this aspect, see e.g. Martens 1992 (ground-­breaking, with a historiographic introduction on the ‘nostalgie du tableau’ in scholarship on Greek vase painting: 11–22); Manfrini 2008; Dietrich 2013; Lissarrague 2015 (with a short introduction to the problem of ‘flattening’ the vase: 237–8); Dietrich 2017: 304–9. 11   See Gerhard 1840, 1843, 1847, and 1858. 12   The original drawings of the Gerhard’scher Apparat are kept in the Altes Museum in Berlin, where I had the opportunity to study and discuss them with Elise Lehoux. This visit was made possible by Ursula Kästner, to whom I am most grateful. 13   Berlin, Altes Museum Magazin, Gerhard’scher Apparat, X 123. 14   Paris, Louvre F 53; Attic black-­figure amphora attributed to the E-­Group; height (without cover): 44.5 cm; ABV 136.49, 686, 674; CVA Paris, Louvre 3 (1922), III.He.13, pls 19.1–3, 20.1–4 [E. Pottier]; BAPD 310309. 15   Gerhard 1843: pl. CVIII, depicting an Attic black-­figure amphora now in the G. Callimanopulos private collection in New York (ex Castle Ashby, Northampton); height: 48 cm; ABV 329.5; CVA Northampton, Castle Ashby (1979), 5–6, pls 9.1–2, 10.1–4 [J. Boardman and M. Robertson]; BAPD 301769.

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F igure 10.4 a–­c.  Attic black-­figure amphora with Herakles and Geryon (Louvre F 53): (a) in a drawing from the Gerhard’scher Apparat; (b) as published in Gerhard 1843, pl. CVII; (c) in a modern photograph taken at the Louvre.

publication of the Hamilton collection.16 Yet even in these volumes—­paradigmatic as they are for the transformation of Greek decorated vases into panel paintings—­ the qualities of vases as objects are not entirely absent. The three complementary illustrations of a chous by the Shuvalov Painter exemplify this.17 While one engraving with a ‘frame’ turns the Vasenbild into a panel painting (Figure 10.6c), the two other illustrations of the same vase emphasize its characteristics as an object through a sectional profile drawing with measurements (Figure 10.6b) and a view of the decorated vessel as a whole (Figure 10.6a).18 The reproductions focusing on the picture on the one hand, and on the profile on the other, have close equivalents in the set of photographs normally required for illustrating a vase in today’s standardized publication formats: including photograph(s) strictly 16   On d’Hancarville’s pioneering work in the late eighteenth century, see e.g. Haskell 1984; Hönes 2014: 33–86. More specifically on d’Hancarville’s publication of the Hamilton vases: Vickers 1987; Griener 1992; Lissarrague 1997b; Brylowe 2008; Weissert 2005; Heringman 2013: 125–53. 17   London, British Museum E 525; Attic red-­figure chous attributed to the Shuvalov Painter; height: 15.5 cm; ARV 2 1208.38, Para 463; Lezzi-­Hafter 1976: 111, cat. no. S 95, pl. 137; BAPD 215997. 18   Figures 10.6a–­c are not taken from the 1st edition d’Hancarville 1766–7, but from the re-­edition d’Hancarville 1801–2. However, these plates closely follow those of the original edition. As Wolfgang Filser suggested to me, one important reason for the vase as a whole to appear here might be the book’s intention to serve the needs of the neoclassicist ‘art industry’.

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F igure 10.5.  Plate CVIII from E. Gerhard, Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder, hauptsächlich etruskischen Fundorts, Vol. 2: Heroenbilder (Berlin, 1843): Attic black-­figure amphora with Herakles and Geryon. Now G. Callimanopulos private collection in New York (ex Castle Ashby, Northampton).

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F igure 10.6 a–­c.  Attic red-­figure chous by the Shuvalov Painter (British Museum E 525), as depicted in d’Hancarville’s publication of the Hamilton collection: plates 101 (= fig. 6a), 102 (= fig. 6b), and 103 (= fig. 6c) from the re-­edition of 1801–2.

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centred on the vase’s picture field(s); photograph(s) of the object as a whole in a strict orthogonal view taken from a distance, so as to minimize the distortion of the profile; and, occasionally, a profile drawing.19 Only the last illustration of the chous (Figure 10.6a) has no equivalent among the depictions of vases typically found in the CVA fascicles or in monographs devoted to individual vase painters. This oblique view of the vessel shows the form of the object with its characteristic volume, its peculiar lip, its handle, and a part of the picture, and visibly tries to capture the effect of the brilliant black glaze. It seeks to bring out the vase as an aesthetically appealing, decorated object, without discriminating between the ceramic body and the picture.20 This juxtaposition of the detached picture (Figure 10.6c), the geometry of the vase (Figure 10.6b), and the vase as a dec­ or­ated artefact (Figure 10.6a) shows that, at least in d’Hancarville’s publication, the transformation of the Vasenbild into a panel painting is a conscious choice.21 In later drawings of Greek vases, the focus on the main scene clearly becomes more marked, not least because the neoclassical interest in decoration à la grecque progressively gave way to a more specifically art historical interest in the iconography and stylistic development of Greek painting.22 Nevertheless, it remained common practice to complement the detached picture with a depiction of the vase as a whole, as seen in the plate published by Gerhard in 1845 (Figure 10.1). Notably, the small outline drawings of the vase also feature the ornamental dec­ or­ation, which was left out in the main illustration. Of course, this example also attests to a clear perception of hierarchy between the coloured and true-­to-­scale depiction of the figural scene and the small-­scale drawing of the whole vase with its figural and ornamental decoration. The miniature drawings of the vase mainly mark what is missing, without fully depicting these missing aspects. Despite these omissions, it is questionable whether the standard photograph of a vase solely focusing on the Vasenbild—­i.e. the kind of images normally found in current academic literature—­really implies a higher degree of sensitivity to the role of the

  This is not to say that d’Hancarville’s vase illustrations can cope with today’s scholarly standards. On their lack of accuracy, see e.g. Weissert 2005: 15. 20   This aspect of d’Hancarville’s publication is highlighted by Pfuhl 1923: 9, who identifies a setback in this respect in later vase publications. 21   Note the order in which these three illustrations of the same vase are placed in d’Hancarville: they lead from the three-­dimensional object on pl. 101 to the picture transformed into a panel on pl. 103, passing through the vase’s abstract (and flat!) ‘geometrization’ on pl. 102. 22   On criticism of d’Hancarville’s vase illustrations in the early nineteenth century, pleading for a greater emphasis on the pure drawing, see Weissert 2005: 15–18; compare also with A.-L. Millin’s Peintures de vases antiques from 1808–10, relying exclusively on contour drawing, while providing only for the ‘goût des amateurs’ another set of coloured plates that may be detached from the book and framed in order to decorate one’s apartment, as is explained in the foreword. See Dubois-­Maisonneuve, Clener, and Millin 1808–10, second page of the avertissement de l’éditeur (also commenting on d’Hancarville’s choices concerning the illustration of vases). 19

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Vasenbild as decoration of a luxury object than does a drawing like Gerhard’s plate (Figure 10.1). Indeed, I suggest it does not, for two reasons. Firstly, the process of transposing the figural decoration of the rounded vase onto paper forces the draughtsperson to face the kind of problems that occur in any attempt at ‘squaring circles’, problems that are all but sidestepped when one aims a camera at the main figural scene. Secondly, the depiction, side by side, of the detached picture and of the vase as a whole makes this biased view of Greek vase painting also explicit for the viewer. A summary of what has been said on the aspects of a painted vase that drawing tends to conserve but are lost in photography would run thus. In stark contrast to photography, drawing tends to preserve differences in size and differences in artistic effort. This is partly due to the manual procedure involved in drawing, making correspondences between the model and the reproduction concerning these two aspects a logical consequence. Moreover, drawing also tends to make explicit the gap between the three-­dimensional object and its flat reproduction, especially through the difficulties which the graphic transformation (i.e. the ‘squaring of circles’) inevitably involves. Finally, drawing also makes explicit the biased perception of Greek vases cultivated by studies that focus primarily on art history and iconography. In effect, then, drawing Greek Vasenbilder reveals the irrecoverable gap between a three-­dimensional decorated pot and its representation in a flat medium, pointing e negativo to its defining properties: its size, its materiality, the degree of elaboration of its figural and ornamental decoration.

A SPECTS OF GR EEK VA SE S T H AT A R E PR E SERV ED I N PHOTOGR A PHS BU T L OST I N DR AW I NG S

The Painting’s Connection to the Three-­Dimensional Object Obviously, photography preserves the painting’s connection to the decorated, three-­dimensional object. This connection results in picture fields on the vase that are more or less curved, and hence more or less visible or obscured when viewed from a single perspective.23 For lekythoi with their tall cylindrical form, the consequences of the curvature are particularly acute. To take the white-­ ground lekythos by the Triglyph Painter in Berlin as an example, no photograph is able to show more than one of the three depicted figures (Figure 10.7a–­b).24   On the issue of partial visibility of a vase’s decoration from any single point of view, see above, note 10.   Berlin, Antikensammlung F 2680; Attic white-­ground lekythos attributed to the Triglyph Painter; height: 53.8 cm; ARV2 1385.1; CVA Berlin, Antikensammlung 12 (2011), 59–62 (with Figure 10.9), Taf. 40 [N. Zimmermann-­Elseify]; BAPD 217827. 23

24

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This mutual isolation of the single figures in the visual field does make sense on the original object, insofar as the three figures all pertain to different spatial and temporal realms:25 the central figure, whom I would identify as a visitor at the grave bringing offerings,26 belongs to the world of the living, while Charon to the right belongs to the underworld, and the figure of the deceased—­whom I  would recognize in the left figure—­is passing from the upper world to the underworld. Just as the figures in the picture do not see each other, the beholder too cannot see them all at once.27 In the déroulé drawing of the picture (Figure 10.7c) the intrinsic logic of this layout is no longer apparent.28 Another specific feature of this lekythos is lost in this drawing: the reeds from which Charon’s boat emerges are separated from the figure of the deceased.29 In order

F igure 10.7 a–­c.  Attic white-­ground lekythos by the Triglyph Painter (Berlin, Antikensammlung F 2680), in two partial photographic views and a drawing.

25   On the concepts of pictorial space underlying such images, see Dietrich 2010: 298–301 (discussing the famous ‘Helikon-­lekythos’ in Munich). 26   Variously thought to depict the deceased or a visitor to the grave, the identity of the male figure on the left is debated (see N. Zimmermann-­Elseify in CVA Berlin, Antikensammlung 12, 61–2). On the intrinsic complexity of these scenes and the difficulty of telling which figure actually depicts the deceased, see Schmidt 2005: 62–79. 27   This does not hold true for all the figures, insofar as Charon obviously is able to see the visitor at the grave, reaching out with his right arm to grasp one of the offerings from her basket. This detail shows all the more the complex ways in which these pictures handled pictorial space. On the iconography of Attic white-­ground lekythoi with their ‘impossible encounters’ of the living and the dead, see Buschor 1939: 33–59 (ground-­breaking); Giudice 2015 (most recently, with earlier bibliography). For a shorter but comprehensive iconographic overview of the scenes at the grave, see Oakley 2004: 145–214 (esp. 173–91 for the present context). 28   In all fairness, it should be noted that without the déroulé this intrinsic spatial logic would have been difficult to recognize in standard photographs. 29  F.  Lissarrague brought my attention to this particularity of many white-­ground grave lekythoi showing Charon in his boat.

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to avoid depicting the feature twice, the modern illustrator positioned it next to Charon only, thus reducing the intrinsic spatial ambiguity which the frieze exhibits on the original object. Another aspect of vase painting that is likely to get lost when the pictures are ‘detached’ from the vase through drawing—­but are preserved when photographed—­is the close relationship of the picture’s concrete form to what might be called the ‘architecture’ of the vase: that is, the given vessel type’s particular morphology in conjunction with its general decorative scheme that structures the object in a tectonic way and provides specific affordances for the figural decoration, in a manner resembling monumental Greek architecture with its clearly defined zones for figural decoration, such as metopes, pediments, and friezes.30 An amphora of the group of Würzburg 199 showing Herakles and Pholos exemplifies this feature well.31 In the illustration published in Gerhard’s

F igure 10.8.  Attic black-­figure amphora with Herakles and Pholos (Bologna, Museo Civico 1436), as illustrated in Gerhard 1843, pl. CXIX. 30   On the concept of vase architecture, see Dietrich 2010: 100–2 (with note 191) and 435–6 (with note 219). 31   Bologna, Museo Civico Archaeologico 1436; Attic black-­figure amphora attributed to the Group of Würzburg 199; height: 40 cm; ABV 288.10; CVA Bologna, Museo Civico 2, III.H.E, 8–9, pl. 15.1–4 [L. Laurinsich]; BAPD 320313.

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Griechische Vasenbilder (Figure 10.8), which is in turn based on a drawing of the vase in the Gerhard’scher Apparat, the peculiar form of the rock from which Pholos emerges appears as an oddity. It is only the photograph of the amphora that clarifies the positioning of the picture on the body of the amphora and its relation to the architecture of the vase, its ‘solid’ parts in the handle zone and its ‘open’ field where the figures are applied, and, most importantly, the rock running alongside the border of the picture field, which transforms the part of the picture field where Pholos stands into a cave.32 Many other examples of the often rather subtle relationship between picture and vase architecture could be cited here—­and drawing is notoriously inept at rendering this.

The Vase’s Aesthetic Allure: Colour, Glaze and Brilliance Another aspect of Greek painted vases which is lost in drawing but (potentially) preserved by photography is what might be termed their aesthetic allure, comprising colour, glaze, brilliance,33 and the like—­features that might well have played an essential role in the poikilia of these highly sophisticated vessels in antiquity.34 This more technical side of the painters’ and potters’ expertise has been much underplayed in scholarship that is traditionally more interested in the development of Greek drawing. Accordingly, photographs of vases which focus on this aspect are found not in publications for a solely academic public, but rather in museum catalogues, such as Beth Cohen’s Colors of Clay relating to the eponymous exhibition at the Getty Museum in 2006.35 This obviously well-­ financed book with a profusion of gleaming high-­quality figures shows what photography is able to achieve in rendering the visual allure of colour, glaze, and brilliance on Greek vases, if indeed it is ‘allowed’ to do this instead of serving the more common scholarly demand for what are deemed more ‘objective’ pictures (i.e. photographs that seek to capture the formal aspects of the vase decoration in tightly cropped frames). Closely related to this point is another aspect of vase painting which photography can, but drawing cannot, render: namely, the differences in the levels of visibility of different elements in the painted decoration. On the occasion of a

32   For this way of indicating a cave by ‘covering’ a part of the picture’s frame with rocks and thus turning the respective portion of the picture field into a cave, see in detail Dietrich 2010: 90–3, 100–2, and 154–75. 33   On this aspect of Greek decorated vases, see Dietrich 2017: esp. 311–15. 34   Detienne and Vernant 1978: 18–19 remains fundamental for understanding poikilia as a characteristic of adorned artefacts. See also Hurwit 1985: 23–4; Himmelmann 1998: 34; Neer 2002: esp. 16, 33–4, and 183–5; Neer 2010: 112–14; Grand-­Clément 2011: esp. 251–2; Dietrich 2017: 314–15; and Kéi 2022: 75–154. 35   Cohen 2006.

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F igure 10.9 a–­b.  Attic red-­figure cup by Makron (Paris, Louvre G 271), interior picture photographed twice under the same electric light, but at a slightly different angle.

recent handling session in the Louvre, I took the two photographs in Figures 10.9a and 9b reproducing the inner side of a cup by Makron; both images were taken under the same light, but from a slightly different angle.36 In the photograph in Figure 10.9a, only the strong lines of the drawing are visible; in the photograph in Figure 10.9b, where the light reflection fell directly on the camera lens, the numerous lines drawn in diluted slip, detailing the anatomy and ‘bringing it to life’, appear as strongly as the relief lines used for drawing the figure’s general outlines. These two photographs reveal something that anybody who has had the opportunity to hold a vase in his or her hands or tried to distinguish tiny details through a glazed display cabinet has experienced, namely that it is only by letting the light wander over the vase’s surface that one has a chance of seeing all that the painter has drawn or written on it. The photograph’s viewing experience proves here intrinsically bound to the handling and moving of the vase and to the play of changing light on its surface, resulting alternately in the appearance and disappearance of details and—­ one might say—­ in a succession of ephemeral epiphanies. One can hardly think of a medium more suitable than photography for rendering the effects of light on the vase’s surface. The aspects enumerated here in which photography outclasses drawing in its ability to render specific qualities of a painted vase all have to do with the viewing of vases: in the way the medium connects vase painting to three-­dimensional objects, with all that this connection implies for the conditions of visibility of the decoration; in its preservation of the differences in the original’s colour, glaze, and brilliance; and in the way it highlights differences in the levels of visibility of 36   Paris, Louvre G 271; Attic red-­figure cup attributed to Makron; diameter: 23.2 cm; ARV2 461.33; Kunisch 1997: 207, cat. no. 433, pl. 147; BAPD 204715. The electric light used for the two photographs in Figures 10.9a and 9b was, of course, much stronger than any source of light in a Greek banquet room. As a result, the contrasting effects of the reflections show up in an exaggerated way in the two photo­ graphs. For fuller discussion of this cup in its two photographic views, see Dietrich 2017: 312–14.

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single details through the play of light and reflection on the vases’ surface. It might seem unsurprising that photography turns out to offer a fairly close simulation of the aesthetic experience of viewing. However, in comparing the strengths of photography to those of drawing, one can discern more similarities than one might have expected. Drawing as a medium of representation can also excel in its capacity to direct the viewer’s attention to the defining properties of the decorated vase as a three-­dimensional object. The difference lies in how these two media accomplish their task. While photography can be successful in directly rendering the visual effects generated by these decorated objects, drawing is able to highlight the irrecoverable gap between the vase and its representation, and thus to point e negativo to what matters about a Greek painted vase. To put it in a nutshell: photography proves useful as a medium of simulation, while drawing proves useful as a discursive tool.

T H E USE OF PHOTOGR A PH Y I N AC A DEM IC PU BL IC AT IONS

I am aware that my analysis of the benefits of drawing and photography is in keeping with current scholarly interests in visual culture and the materiality of vases,37 but far less so with the more traditional approaches in iconography and art history (though these subjects have lost none of their importance to my mind). My view of Greek vases, then, is as biased as any other, though not in the same way as past approaches in classical archaeology have been. Indeed, we should expect that the kinds of representation which former generations of scholars have used should fit the kinds of questions that they were interested in, as opposed to those I am interested in! In this last section, I will focus less on what can potentially be achieved with photography than on how this medium of representation was actually used when it first started to compete seriously with the older medium of drawing. What emerges in the context of academic research on painted pottery is that the advantages of photography discussed above were in fact not made use of. Instead, it appears that the photographs were intended to recapture the benefits of drawing. Above all, the brilliance of the glaze was consciously obscured by picturing the vases from awkward perspectives.38 More often than not, the   The materiality of vases and even the haptic dimension of their painted decoration is not altogether a new issue of scholarly interest. See, for instance, Pfuhl’s comments on the Reichhold drawings in Pfuhl 1923: 8–9. 38   See the special recommendation on how to prevent bright spots and reduce the general brilliance (sic!) in photographing Greek vases given in the proceedings of the CVA conference held in Lyon in 1956: ‘conseils pour photographier les vases grecs’ (H. Bloesch) in Dugas and Metzger 1957: 31–3. On 37

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archaeologists, and with them the photographers, aimed to produce undisturbed and undistorted visions of the figural scenes, just as drawings normally present them. The photographs of the aforementioned Makron cup in the Louvre (Figure 10.9a–­b) in Nortbert Kunisch’s 1997 monograph on Makron exemplify this tendency.39 Three photographs show the two exterior picture fields with arming scenes and the interior one with a youth holding a dove. The three photo­graphs closely resemble earlier drawings of Attic cups (such as those found in Furtwängler and Reichhold’s volumes) in that the three cropped views have been arranged on one plate in a layout that is meant to ‘reassemble’ the vase through three entirely independent photographic views. This ‘reassembling’ is successful as regards the vase as a carrier of figural decoration. As a reproduction of the three-­dimensional object, however, the arrangement is not at all successful. Indeed, these three photographic views are of no use if one wants to get a sense of the overall shape of the vase; only by way of the specialist’s general acquaintance with the morphology of early fifth-­century Attic cups will the viewer be able to infer the cup’s three-­dimensional form. Monographs on individual vase painters tend to offer similar sets of three photographic views showing the three main picture fields of an Attic cup, which are often complemented by a fourth photograph in a separate section at the end of the book, devoted to profile views of cups decorated by the same painter.40 A telling comparison can be drawn with the graphic depiction of the small chous in d’Hancarville’s book discussed above (Figure 10.6a–­c). In their attempt to present nothing but the figure scenes—­undisturbed as far as possible by reflections on the glaze and the curved nature of the vase and its glaze—­the photo­ graphs of the cup’s three picture fields in fact provide a close equivalent of what d’Hancarville provides in his ‘framed’ engravings (Figure 10.6c). Moreover, the fourth type of photograph, showing the cup in a strict profile view, finds a close parallel in d’Hancarville’s geometrically drawn vessel profile (Figure  10.6b). Indeed, this last type of standard photographic view of a vase in academic publications aims not in any way to show the vase as a three-­dimensional and highly decorated object, but to convey the information normally found in a profile drawing. As for the third image of the chous in d’Hancarville, which attempts to recreate the visual effect produced by the glazed and decorated preventing ‘distracting’ reflections in vase photography, see already Müller 1937. See also more recently Schubert and Grunauer-­von Hoerschelmann 1978: no. 41. For an updated version of how vases should be documented in the CVA, see Schmidt 2014: 10–11. 39   See Kunisch 1997: pl. 147. Note though that the Makron cup under discussion is not included among Kunisch’s selection of vessels shown in profile view. 40   As an example of this standard procedure of photographic documentation, see Buitron-­Oliver 1995 (monograph on Douris). A photograph in strict profile view is also included in most of the ‘better’ CVA volumes.

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vase (Figure  10.6a), the sets of photographic views normally provided in monographs on vase painters or in CVA fascicles offer no direct equivalent. In comparing how the two media are employed, we make the counterintuitive discovery that d’Hancarville’s drawings give a much better impression of the vase as an object than the photo­graph­ic documentation that has become standard in academic publications. Of course, if our comparison had focused on other drawings—­ones more exclusively aimed at the figures—­it would have yielded different results. An ideal case in point is the publication of the Attic red-­figure vases in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, in which photography and drawing are used side by side.41 Appearing in 1931, 1954, and 1963, the publication is one of the last of its kind to make extensive use of drawings. Remarkably, the illustrations reveal precious little difference in how the two media are employed. There is no clear attempt to use them in different ways, with photographs and drawings frequently just substituting each other. In many cases, drawings of the exterior friezes of cups are combined with a photograph of the tondo, as in the case of a cup by Douris (Figure 10.10).42 The reason for this use of different media of representation for the same cup is likely to be a technical one. Indeed, the great problem of avoiding bright spots and reflections on the photograph is much easier to handle in the concave inner side than on the convex exterior of the cup. The resemblance between drawings and photographs is often striking. With some plates, one needs to look twice in order to decide whether they are drawings or photo­graphs, not least because the techniques were combined in some cases, for instance by strengthening anatomical markings with pencil on the photographic print.43 As a general rule, the more expensive drawings are provided for the ‘best’ vases. For the less esteemed ones, the photographs are made to resemble as closely as possible the more lavish drawings. The urge to imitate the aesthetics known from vase drawings in the use of photography transpires both from the appearance of the single photograph and from the layout of the different views on the plate: (1) the photographs are taken in a way that gives the black glaze a homogeneous opaque darkness without any

41   Beazley and Caskey 1931, 1954, and 1963. The drawings in these volumes were executed by different hands: S. E. Chapman executed all the drawings in Vol. III and most in Vol. II; F. Anderson made some of the drawings in Vols I and II, and L. D. Caskey the rest in Vols I and II (for details, see the respective prefaces). As Beazley and Caskey explained, the difficulty of finding qualified draughtsmen meant that the second volume already had to rely heavily on photography, in spite of the authors’ somewhat anachronistic preference for drawn illustrations; see Beazley and Caskey 1954: preface. 42  Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 00.499; Attic red-­figure cup attributed to Douris (by signature); diameter: 31 cm; ARV2 435.89, 1585; Beazley and Caskey 1963: 21–3, cat. no. 129, pl. LXXIII (reproduced in Figure  10.10); Buitron-­Oliver 1995: cat. no. 133, pl. 79; BAPD 205135. All three views (including the photograph of the tondo!) are true to scale. 43   See L. D. Caskey in Beazley and Caskey 1931: preface. This practice of drawing on photographic prints was still in use in the later volumes, without being especially mentioned (see A. Alexandridis in Alexandridis and Heilmeyer 2004: 14, note 56).

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F igure 10.10.  Plate LXXIII from Beazley and Caskey 1963, combining photography and drawing to illustrate a cup by Douris (Boston 00.499).

bright spots; (2) the picture field is isolated from the vase to give the impression of a freestanding picture.44   Note that photographs of the interior decoration of cups in Vol. I (1931) were even cut out along the outline of the tondo, so as to get rid of the ‘all-­too-­photographic’ rectangular frame and appear as round medallions, in imitation of drawings of tondos. This practice of transposing the round frame—­a 44

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In other cases, photography and drawing complement each other not only through close imitation of each other’s visual effects, but through a ‘separation of labour’ in the documentation of a single vase. This is the case for an amphora by the Kleophrades Painter, illustrated through two large true-­to-­scale drawings of the isolated figures on either side of the vase, two small (but still true-­to-­ scale!) close-­up photographs directly supplementing the drawings above,45 and finally another small photograph showing the vase as a whole in strongly reduced dimensions (Figure 10.11).46 Here, a main function of the drawing is clearly to restore the visibility of details that the photographs fail to convey, such as lines painted in dilute glaze. Another detail that photography typically fails to capture is inscriptions painted in white slip, which is liable to fade away. The Boston lekythos by the Alkimachos Painter depicting the birth of Dionysus is a case in point, on which the inscription is visible only in the drawing (Figure 10.12).47 More importantly, though, the drawing here is able to show the figural scene as a whole by means of a déroulé of the cylindrical vase.48 The ability of drawings to logical choice for a drawing—­to the medium of photography (for which the logical choice would have been a rectangular frame) is not continued in Vol. II (1954). 45   On this subsidiary function of photography, providing detailed views to supplement the main drawing, see L. D. Caskey in Beazley and Caskey 1931: preface. 46  Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 10.178; Attic red-­figure amphora attributed to the Kleophrades Painter; height 45.4 cm; ARV 2 183.9, 1632; Beazley and Caskey 1931: 12–13, cat. no. 16, pl. V (reproduced in Figure 10.11); BAPD 201662. This famous vase has also been published by E. Gerhard (1858: pl. 275), with an overall plate design that is closely comparable. The small photograph of the vase as a whole may be compared to the small drawings of the vase in reduced scale at the bottom of Gerhard’s plate, supplementing the large, true-­to-­scale coloured drawings of the two figures. Such a plate design is standard in Gerhard’s vase publications, as seen above in Figure 10.1 (reproduced after Gerhard 1845). 47   Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 95.39; Attic red-­figure lekythos attributed to the Alkimachos Painter; height 42.9 cm; ARV 2 533.58, Para 384; Beazley and Caskey 1963: 47–8, cat. no. 148, pl. LXXXIV.1 and 4 (reproduced in Figure 10.11); BAPD 206036. The drawing of the figural scene (in déroulé) is true to scale, while the photograph of the vase as a whole is in reduced scale. 48   However, a déroulé may also be produced through photography, by means of the more sophisticated method of panoramic photography, an issue that deserves closer attention. Very common in today’s photo­graph­ic documentation (see e.g. the photographic déroulé made by J.  Laurentius of the white-­ ground lekythos mentioned above [Figure  10.7a–­c] included in the recent CVA publication [Berlin, Antikensammlung 12 (2011) pl. 41], or indeed the déroulé photograph of the Boston lekythos by the Alkimachos Painter [Figure 10.12] on the museum website), experimentation with such panoramic photography of vases started early. As the almost regular cylindrical shape of this type of lekythos greatly facilitates the creation of a photographic déroulé, such ‘trick photographs’ of lekythoi and other nearly cylindrical vases are found as early as 1896 in a lavish publication of white-­ground vases from the British Museum, which were created using an apparatus called the ‘cyclograph’ which had been devised by the archaeologist and conservator from the British Museum  A.  H.  Smith himself (see Murray and Smith 1896: preface and plates; also discussed by K. Morton in this volume). But the production of vase déroulés with photographic precision and ‘incorruptibility’ has continued to prompt archaeologists to develop technical creativity. In 1921 the archaeologist G. von Lücken published a great number of déroulé photo­ graphs of Greek vases without any written commentaries, using a new and more potent method invented and patented by him. This new technique was also capable of producing déroulés of more complex shapes,

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F igure 10.11.  Plate V from Beazley and Caskey 1931, combining photography and drawing to illustrate an amphora by the Kleophrades Painter (Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 10.178).

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F igure 10.12.  Plate LXXXIV from Beazley and Caskey 1963, combining photography and drawing to illustrate a lekythos by the Alkimachos Painter (Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 95.39).

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provide clear and easily legible pictures—­putting together all the ‘graphic information’ distinguishable on the vase and, in so doing, achieving high ­documentary value—­is perhaps the most important aspect here. In any case, the choice of medium of reproduction is a pragmatic one, less oriented towards the potentialities of either medium, and more towards the specific interest in vase painting underlying this publication, namely the development of Greek painting. Another telling case is Ernst Pfuhl’s large handbook on Greek drawing and painting published in 1923. In the plethora of plates, drawings and photographs are used side by side and interchangeably. The author does not seem to care too much about the technical differences between different images, as photographs and drawings are basically fulfilling the same function of providing clear pictures.49 Probably, the choice of the medium was made according to what was at hand—­ and at that time, drawings were often still the best reproductions one could get hold of. More generally, it is difficult to say to what extent the issue of production and copyright costs might have been a determining factor in the choice of using either drawings or photographs. For the slight comeback that drawings have had in academic publications on vases in recent years, copyright costs definitely are an important factor.

CONCLUSION

To sum up, one can say that at the time when photography begins to play an important role in scholarly literature on Greek vases, the medium is basically made to emulate drawing, aiming at similar effects and making similar choices in deciding which aspects of the painted vases it highlights and which aspects it puts aside.50 One virtue of drawing is especially relevant here: the clarity and density of detail it conveys, including elements difficult to see either in ‘bad’ photo­graphs or even on the original artefact itself displayed in a vitrine. The such as cups (see von Lücken 1921: preface and plates). His photographic déroulés present the vases in a way closely similar to drawing. With the help of digital tools, the ability of producing déroulés is becoming ever more widespread. The special case of déroulé photography shows clearly that photography of vases has long been treated as a kind of ‘drawing by mechanical means’, without any attempt to depart from the specific aesthetics of drawings. This links the uses of photography for vase illustration in the first half of the twentieth century with the early history of this medium, when it was still mainly considered as a more precise and trustworthy means of drawing, without claiming any specific photographic aesthetics.   But see Pfuhl’s own statement on the benefits of drawings and the downsides of photography: Pfuhl 1923: 9–10 (commenting on the publications by Furtwängler and Reichhold). E. Pottier already pointed out this divergence between theory and practice: Pottier 1924: 290. 50   This tendency of trying to obtain similar results to drawing may well apply to early object photography as a whole. See A. Alexandridis’s comments in Alexandridis and Heilmeyer 2004: 9 (with further references in note 20). 49

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potential of drawing to mediate the gap between three-­dimensionality and two-­dimensionality, though, is not in question in the examples we have looked at, nor is the nature of the vase as a material object. The clarity and density of graphic information that drawing is capable of producing is also responsible for the ongoing popularity in scholarship of such outstanding drawings as those of Reichhold. Why, then, did photography eventually overshadow drawing in such an un­equivo­cal way as an aid in academic research? Indeed, the large-­scale and ongoing efforts to publish vases in Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum—­a venture which started in a period when some great vase drawing projects were still underway and John  D.  Beazley (1885–1970) still heavily relied on the medium in his ground-­breaking vase-­painting research—­initially did not make any substantial use of drawings. As a last point in this paper, I would like to suggest a couple of reasons for this. (1) Photography and the printing of photographs soon became considerably cheaper than drawing, allowing a much greater number of vases to be recorded. While laborious drawing necessarily restricted scholarly attention to a fairly small number of alleged masterpieces, photography had the effect of liberating scholars from the stranglehold of a small, reproducible canon. (2) The alleged objectivity of photography made it the ideal medium of academic research.51 It permitted a very high level of accuracy in the representation of objects with relatively little effort. The ‘perfect’ accuracy that photography was supposedly able to attain is what Arthur Murray emphasizes in the preface to his 1896 publication of the white-­ground vases of the British Museum, for which he made use of a particularly sophisticated photographic technique yielding déroulés of  cylindrical vases. In many ways this short-­lived technique achieved exactly what drawing was able to do, though in an ‘improved’ and more ‘objective’ manner.52 (3) Photography allows a much greater degree of standardization in the reproduction of vases, and hence facilitates comparison, typological and stylistic ordering, and the study of iconography. The CVA and vase painter monographs, in which vases are photographed in a specified  As the French physicist Dominique François Arago argued in his famous presentation of the Daguerreotype before the French Academy of Science on 19 August 1839, this should be particularly true for archaeology. On his comments, see A. Alexandridis in Alexandridis and Heilmeyer 2004: 12, and Filser 2017b: 3. 52   See above, note 48. Compare the critical remarks on this technical innovation in Pfuhl 1923: 10. On ‘cyclographic’ photography, see also K. Morton in this volume. 51

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number of standardized views, bear witness to this. Together with the dramatically increased number of vases that were made available through photography, this standardization paved the way for a most far-­reaching methodological change: it enabled research based on series of vases, instead of on single items conceived as independent works of art. But as soon as one starts to work on series, the need for ever more extensive and complete series arises—­at which point there is no viable alternative to photography. These three aspects that arguably have played a role in the triumph of ­photography over drawing nevertheless have nothing to do with the benefits of photography which I set out in the second part of this paper. Indeed, as I tried to show it, this triumph of photography might well be understood as a continuation of drawing by other means. As for future research on Greek painted pottery, one may conjecture a different triumph of photography: new approaches to Greek vases, particularly those more interested in their materiality and less interested in their role as mere substitutes for lost Greek paintings, may yet accelerate an uncoupling of the medium of photography from its aesthetic connection to drawing, giving rise to fresh approaches.53

BI BL IOGR A PH Y A lexandridis , A., and W.-D. H eilmeyer . 2004. Archäologie der Photographie: Bilder aus der Photothek der Antikensammlung Berlin (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern). B eazley , J. D., and C askey , L. D. 1931. Attic Vase Paintings in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press). B eazley , J. D., and C askey , L. D. 1954. Attic Vase Paintings in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Vol. 2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press). B eazley , J. D., and C askey , L. D. 1963. Attic Vase Paintings in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Vol. 3 (Oxford: Oxford University Press). B ohrer , F. N. 2011. Photography and Archaeology (London: Reaktion Books). B orbein , A. 1979. ‘Klassische Archäologie in Berlin vom 18. zum 20. Jahrhundert’, in W.  Arenhövel and Chr. Schreiber (eds), Berlin und die Antike: Architektur, Kunstgewerbe, Malerei, Skulptur, Theater und Wissenschaft vom 16. Jahrhundert bis heute (Berlin: Wasmuth), 99–150. B rinkmann , V. 2001. ‘Die Fotografie in der Archäologie’, in S.  Altekamp (ed.), Posthumanistische klassische Archäologie: Historizität und Wissenschaftlichkeit von Interessen und Methoden (Munich: Hirmer), 403–11.

  Such a development may even encourage photographs such as those found in Cohen 2006—today still more characteristic of the museum (or indeed art market) context—­to enter the academic context. 53

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B rylowe , T. 2008. ‘Two Kinds of Collections: Sir William Hamilton’s Vases, Real and Represented’, Eighteenth-Century Life 32: 23–56. B uitron -O liver , D. 1995. Douris: A Master-Painter of Athenian Red-Figure Vases (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern). B uschor , E. 1939. Grab eines attischen Mädchens (Munich: Bruckmann). C ohen , B. 2006. The Colors of Clay: Special Techniques in Athenian Vases (Los Angeles, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum). C ollet , P. 1996. ‘La photographie et l’archéologie: des chemins inverses’, Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 120: 325–44. D’H ancarville , P.-F. H. 1766–7. Antiquités étrusques, grecques et romaines tirées du cabinet de M. Hamilton envoyé extraordinaire de S. M. Britannique à la Cour de Naples (Naples: Morelli). D’H ancarville , P.-F. H. 1801–2. Antiquités étrusques, grecques et romaines tirées du cabinet de M. Hamilton envoyé extraordinaire de S. M. Britannique à la Cour de Naples (Florence: Morelli). D ally , O. 2017. ‘Zur Archäologie der Fotografie: Ein Beitrag zu Abbildungspraktiken der zweiten Hälfte des 19. und des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts’, Berliner WinckelmannProgramm 143: 3–68. D étienne , M., and J.-P.  V ernant . 1974. Les ruses de l’intelligence: la mètis des Grecs (Paris: Flammarion). D étienne , M., and J.-P. V ernant . 1978. Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and Society (Hassocks: Harvester Press). D ietrich , N. 2010. Figur ohne Raum? Bäume und Felsen in der attischen Vasenmalerei des 6. und 5. Jahrhunderts v. Chr (Berlin: De Gruyter). D ietrich , N. 2013. ‘Unvollständige Bilder im spätarchaischen und frühklassischen Athen’, Antike Kunst 56: 37–55. D ietrich , N. 2017. ‘Levels of Visibility and Modes of Viewing in Attic Vase-Painting’, in A. Lichtenberger and R. Raja (eds), The Diversity of Classical Archaeology: Studies in Classical Archaeology 1A (Turnhout: Brepols), 303–22. D ubois -M aisonneuve , A., A.  C lener , and A.  L.  M illin . 1808–10. Peintures de vases antiques, vulgairement appelés étrusques (Paris: P. Didot). D ugas , C h ., and H.  M etzger (eds). 1957. Annexe II: Colloque international sur le Corpus vasorum antiquorum, Lyon, 3–5 juillet 1956 (Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique). F ilser , W. 2017a. ‘Illustrated Travel Journals in the Nineteenth Century—­ BilderReisen im 19. Jahrhundert’, in W.  Filser and R.  Reisen (eds), Perspectives on Asia Minor: Historical Imaging Practices and Contemporary Standpoint: A Photographic Exploration of the Ancient Sites of Asia Minor (Berlin: Ernst Wasmuth), 7–21. F ilser , W. 2017b. ‘Magda und Max Ohnefalsch-Richter als Photographen und der Einsatz der frühen Photographie in der Archäologie: Mit einem Anhang zu einem Photofund im Winckelmann-Institut’, in S.  Schmid and S.  Horacek (eds), Ausstellungskatalog: Max Ohnefalsch-Richter auf Zypern (Berlin: Logos Verlag Berlin), 1–41. F urtwängler , A., and K.  R eichhold . 1904–32. Griechische Vasenmalerei: Auswahl hervorragender Vasenbilder (Munich: Bruckmann). G erhard , E. 1840. Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder, hauptsächlich etruskischen Fundorts 1: Götterbilder (Berlin: Reimer).

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G erhard , E. 1843. Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder, hauptsächlich etruskischen Fundorts 2: Heroenbilder (Berlin: Reimer). G erhard , E. 1845. Apulische Vasenbilder des Königlichen Museums zu Berlin (Berlin: Reimer). G erhard , E. 1847. Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder, hauptsächlich etruskischen Fundorts 3: Heroenbilder, meistens homerisch (Berlin: Reimer). G erhard , E. 1858. Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder, hauptsächlich etruskischen Fundorts 4: Griechisches Alltagsleben (Berlin: Reimer). G imon , G. 1980. ‘La photographie ancienne et l’archéologie’, Revue Archéologique 75: 134–6. G iudice , E. 2015. Il tymbos, la stele, la barca di Caronte: l’immaginario della morte sulle lekythoi funerarie a fondo bianco (Rome: ‘L’Erma’ di Bretschneider). G rand -C lément , A. 2011. La fabrique des couleurs: histoire du paysage sensible des Grecs anciens (Paris: De Boccard). G riener , P. 1992. Le antichità etrusche greche e romane, 1766–1776, di Pierre Hugues d’Hancarville: la pubblicazione delle ceramiche antiche della prima collezione Hamilton (Rome: Edizioni dell’Elefante). H askell , F. 1984. ‘The Baron d’Hancarville: An Adventurer and Art Historian in Eighteenth-Century Europe’, in E. Chaney and N. Ritchie (eds), Oxford, China and Italy: Writings in Honour of Sir Harold Acton on His Eightieth Birthday (London: Thames and Hudson), 177–91. H eringman , N. 2013. Sciences of Antiquity: Romantic Antiquarianism, Natural History, and Knowledge Work (Oxford: Oxford University Press). H immelmann , N. 1969. Über bildende Kunst in der homerischen Gesellschaft (Mainz: F. Steiner). H immelmann , N. 1998. Reading Greek Art, trans. Hugo  P.  Meyer (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). H önes , H. 2014. Kunst am Ursprung: Das Nachleben der Bilder und die Souveränität des Antiquars (Bielefeld: Transcript). H übner , G. 2004. ‘Zu den Anfängen der Photographie in der deutschsprachigen Klassischen Archäologie: Ihre Anwendung während der ersten zwei Jahrzehnte der Pergamongrabung’, Istanbuler Mitteilungen 54: 83–111. H urwit , J. M. 1985. The Art and Culture of Early Greece: 1100–480 BC (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press). J ahn , O. 1868. Eduard Gerhard: Ein Lebensabriß (Berlin: G. Reimer). K ästner , U. 2014. ‘Vom Einzelstück zum Fundkomplex: Eduard Gerhards und Robert Zahns Erwerbungen für das Berliner Museum’, in S. Schmidt and M. Steinhart (eds), Sammeln und Erforschen: Griechische Vasen in neuzeitlichen Sammlungen, Beihefte zum Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum (Munich: Beck), 103–13. K ästner , U., and D. S aunders (eds). 2016. Dangerous Perfection: Ancient Funerary Vases from Southern Italy (Los Angeles, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum). K éi , N. 2022. L’esthétique des fleurs: kosmos, poikilia et charis dans la céramique attique du VIe et du Ve siècle av. n. ère (Berlin: De Gruyter). K lamm , S. 2007. ‘Bilder im Wandel: Der Berliner Archäologe Reinhard Kekulé von Stradonitz und die Konkurrenz von Zeichnung und Fotografie’, Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen 49: 115–26.

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K lamm , S. 2017. Bilder des Vergangenen: Visualisierung in der Archäologie im 19. Jahrhundert: Fotografie, Zeichnung und Abguss (Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag). K unisch , N. 1997. Makron (Mainz: P. von Zabern). L ezzi -H after , A. 1976. Der Schuwalow-Maler: Eine Kannenwerkstatt der Parthenonzeit (Mainz: P. von Zabern). L indner , R. 1999. ‘Reinhard Kekulé von Stradonitz, Alexander Conze: Zum Diskurs der Fotografie in der klassischen Archäologie des 19. Jahrhunderts’, Fotogeschichte. Beiträge zur Geschichte und Ästhetik der Fotografie 73: 7–16. L issarrague , F. 1997a. ‘Le peintre des demi-palmettes: aspects iconographiques’, in J. H. Oakley, W. D. E. Coulson and O. Palagia (eds), Athenian Potters and Painters (Oxford: Oxbow Books), 125–39. L issarrague , F. 1997b. ‘The Collector’s Book’, Journal of the History of Collections 9: 275–94. L issarrague , F. 2015. ‘Ways of Looking at Greek Vases’, in P.  Destrée (ed.), A Companion to Ancient Aesthetics (Chichester: John Wiley and Sons), 237–47. L yons , C. L., and A. S zegedy -M aszak (eds). 2005. Antiquity and Photography: Early Views of Ancient Mediterranean Sites (Los Angeles, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum). M anfrini , I. 2008. ‘Mise en vase, mise en torsion’, Images Re-vues [online] Hors-série 1: http://imagesrevues.revues.org/849. M arcoci , R. 2010. ‘The Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture from 1839 to Today’, in R.  Marcoci, G.  Batchen and T.  Bezzola (eds), The Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture from 1839 to Today (New York: Museum of Modern Art), 12–19. M artens , D. 1992. Le vase: une esthétique de la transgression de la fin de l’époque géométrique au début de l’époque classique (Brussels: Académie royale de Belgique). M üller , K. 1937. ‘Über die Vermeidung störender Reflexe beim Photographieren griechischer Vasen’, Nachrichten von der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Philologisch-Historische Klasse: Fachgruppe 1, Nachrichten aus der Altertumswissenschaft 2.5: 104–5. M urray , A. S., and A. H. S mith . 1896. White Athenian Vases in the British Museum (London: Longman). N eer , R. 2002. Style and Politics in Athenian Vase-Painting: The Craft of Democracy, ca. 530–460 BCE (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). N eer , R. 2010. The Emergence of Classical Style in Greek Sculpture (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press). O akley , J. 2004. Picturing Death in Classical Athens: The Evidence of the White Lekythoi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). P fuhl , E. 1923. Malerei und Zeichnung der Griechen (Munich: Bruckmann). P ottier , E. 1924. ‘À propos du “Corpus vasorum antiquorum” ’, Revue Archéologique 19: 280–95. S chmidt , S. 2005. Rhetorische Bilder auf attischen Vasen: Visuelle Kommunikation im 5. Jahrhundert v. Chr (Berlin: Reimer). S chmidt , S. (ed.). 2014. Sammeln und Erforschen: Griechische Vasen in neuzeitlichen Sammlungen, Beihefte zum Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum Deutschland 6 (Munich: Beck).

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S chubert , F., and S.  G runauer - von H oerschelmann . 1978. Archäologie und Photographie: Fünfzig Beispiele zur Geschichte und Methode (Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern). S hanks , M. 1997. ‘Photography and Archaeology’, in B.  L.  Molyneaux (ed.), The Cultural Life of Images (London: Routledge), 73–107. S türmer , V. 1997. ‘Eduard Gerhards “Archäologischer Lehrapparat” ’, in H.  von Wrede (ed.), Dem Archäologen Eduard Gerhard 1795–1867 zu seinem 200. Geburtstag (Berlin: Arenhövel), 145–64. S türmer , V. 2009. ‘Eduard Gerhard: Begründer der institutionellen Archäologie in Berlin’, in A. M. Baertschi and C. G. King (eds), Die modernen Väter der Antike: Die Entwicklung der Altertumswissenschaften an Akademie und Universität im Berlin des 19. Jahrhunderts (Berlin: De Gruyter), 145–64. V ickers , M. 1987. ‘Value and Simplicity: Eighteenth-Century Taste and the Study of Greek Vases’, Past & Present 116: 98–137. von L ücken , G. 1921. Griechische Vasenbilder: Ein neues Verfahren der Wiedergabe (Berlin: Archäologisches Institut). W eissert , C. 2005. ‘Kunsttheorie versus Wissenschaft: D’Hancarvilles Kritik an den bemalten antiken Vasen’, Hancarville und die Hamiltonsche Vasensammlung. Viertes Heft des Arbeitskreises für Theorie und Geschichte der Kunstgeschichtsschreibung 4: 7–20. W rede , H. von (ed.). 1997. Dem Archäologen Eduard Gerhard 1795–1867 zu seinem 200. Geburtstag (Berlin: Willmuth Arenhovel).

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11

The Use of Photographs in the Trade of Greek Vases Vinnie Nørskov

In 1995 the Geneva police raided a warehouse consisting of five rooms with looted archaeological material belonging to the Italian art dealer Giacomo Medici. The story of Giacomo Medici is described vividly by Peter Watson and Cecilia Todeschini in their book The Medici Conspiracy and has had profound consequences for museums that collect ancient Greek vases. This is not least because of the large photographic archive found in the warehouse (Figure 11.1). This collection of documents is but one of a number of dealers’ archives confiscated by the art squads in Greece, Italy, and Switzerland during the last twenty years.1 Such archives can consist of thousands of images showing objects in different conditions: fresh from excavation, before conservation, after conservation, and in museum exhibitions (Figure 11.2).2 They convey the ‘biographies’ of the objects through the stages of looting and conservation to the final sale; they document hidden stories whose existence most people investigating the modern antiquities trade suspected, but had not really been able to prove. The photographs unveiled the—­until then secret or hidden—­activities of a network of art dealers and looters, and they have become prime evidence in the fight against the illicit traffic in antiquities by heritage bodies in Italy. There was only one very crude drawing in the Medici archive. In fact, drawings have only been used sporadically by dealers—­drawing is time-­consuming. The images from   See for instance Gill and Tsirogiannis 2011; Tsirogiannis 2013, 2016.   The photograph shows a Polaroid of a krater that was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1989 at a Sotheby’s auction in New York; see Tsirogiannis 2014. I am grateful to Christos Tsirogiannis for providing me with this photograph. 1 2

Vinnie Nørskov, The Use of Photographs in the Trade of Greek Vases In: Drawing the Greek Vase. Edited by: Caspar Meyer and Alexia Petsalis-­Diomidis, Oxford University Press. © Caspar Meyer and Alexia Petsalis-­Diomidis 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192856128.003.0011

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F igure 11.1.  Photographic albums in the Medici Archive. Courtesy of Dr Christos Tsirogiannis.

dealers’ archives function primarily as documentary objects, as evidence of authenticity and as snapshots of the ‘real thing’. Many of the photographs are taken with Polaroid instant cameras. Not only does this avoid the need for the involvement of third parties to develop and print pre-­digital photographs, it also underlines the clandestine and singular moment of their creation: I was there, and the photograph is the evidence. It is a unique photograph of a unique object, and it involves a photographer—­a witness to the scene in real time. The photo­ graph is testimony to that encounter and its own moment of creation.3 Photographs have been used by dealers as tools to record their transactions—­a role which they have played since the invention of photography in the nineteenth century. Previously, scholars had been using drawings as the main tool for visual documentation, and they continued doing so after photography became common. As will become evident in this chapter, dealers’ photographic archives are part of a tradition that was established as soon as photography became widely available, because it provided dealers with an efficient technology that met their needs, which were quite different from those of scholars. As many scholars have pointed out, photography and scientific archaeology have a common history: ‘Modern archaeology and photography emerged at a common moment in European history, with the culture of positivism of the   On the special character of Polaroid photos as objects, see Buse 2010.

3

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F igure 11.2.  Polaroid photograph from the Medici Archive showing a Paestan bell krater, bought by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1989. Photograph: courtesy Dr Christos Tsirogiannis.

mid-­nineteenth century.’4 From the birth of the Daguerreotype, photographers ­carried their equipment on trips in the Mediterranean region to document monuments and sites.5 The use of this technology by archaeologists and antiquarians was greatly stimulated by Henry Fox Talbot’s invention of the negative-­ positive procedure, which enabled multiple prints to be produced and modified

4

  Bohrer 2011: 15.

5

  Lyons et al. 2005.

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in a way that suited the needs of archaeological documentation.6 Talbot ­promoted his technique among archaeologists, as can be seen for instance in an 1843 letter to Charles Fellows (1799–1860) urging him to have photographs taken on his new expedition to Asia Minor: Nothing excels the photographic method in its power of delineating such objects as form your researches, as ruins, statues, basreliefs &c. And I should think it would be highly interesting to take a view of each remnant of antiquity before removing it, & while it still remains in situ & surrounded with stones & bushes & all the other accompaniments of a wild nature.7

Henry Talbot here argues that photography can be a tool for documenting the context of finds, ‘freezing’ a moment that disappears as soon as the arch­aeo­logic­al work continues. He was, however, keenly aware of the nature of photographs as performances and constructions of ‘reality’ as well as of the role of the photographer in creating visual effects. In a characteristic passage he highlights the creative choices involved in photography: I remember it was said by many persons, at the time when photogenic drawing was first spoken of, that it was likely to prove injurious to art, as substituting mere mechanical labour in lieu of talent and experience. Now, so far from this being the case, I find that in this, as in most other things, there is ample room for the exercise of skill and judgment. It would hardly be believed how different an effect is produced by a longer or shorter exposure to the light, and, also, by mere variation in the fixing process, by means of which almost any tint, cold or warm, may be thrown over the picture, and the effect of bright or gloomy weather may be imitated at pleasure.8

Whereas Talbot stressed both the technological and human dimensions of the photographic process, for most viewers photography still remains primarily a technology that documents the authenticity of events and sites—­an idea exemplified by the Polaroids from the dealers’ archives and the use to which they have been put. But since Roland Barthes’s discussion in his well-­known essay ‘Camera Lucida’ of the paradoxes arising from photography’s role as both artistic presentation and documentary representation—­and the resulting shift in interest from the depicted object to the viewer—­academic approaches have experienced a turn

  Lyons 2005: 33; Talbot 1844.   Letter from H. F. Talbot to Charles Fellows, 11 April 1843, transcribed and published online by the Correspondence of William Henry Fox Talbot Project, De Montfort University, Leicester, http://foxtalbot.dmu.ac.uk/letters/transcriptDate.php?month=4&year=1843&pageNumber=7&pageTotal=16&ref erringPage=0 (document 4799, accessed 11 June 2017). 8   Henry Talbot in The Literary Gazette 1256 (13 February 1841), 108, also cited in Maimon 2008: 316. 6 7

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towards seeing photographs as constructed realities. In reviewing the scholarly literature on archaeological images, I was especially inspired by Michael Shanks and Connie Svabo’s concept of Archaeography—­a compound word they coined to indicate that archaeology and photography share much more than the technology’s capacity for illustrating the results of fieldwork, which had been highlighted by Talbot.9 They argue that archaeology and photography share a common pragmatic order, even a common ontology. Photography can create a virtual architectural space that is closely allied in its possibilities with the workings of the archaeological imagination or, put another way, it allows the arch­aeo­ logic­al imagination to express itself in envisaging the past: ‘archaeology and photography are processes of site specific engagement unfolding in the present, as a continuity of fragmented or arrested moments characterized by tem­por­al­ ities of actuality/kairos and duration’.10 Photography of ancient sites at specific moments of the archaeological process offers a ‘performance’ and recreation of the past in the present: the photograph arrests a particular moment in time and preserves a specific construction or interpretation of the past. Thus, the concepts of temporality and duration are part of the paradox of photography and can help us to understand the staging of archaeological objects. Both the human and the technical elements of photography are essential in analysing photographic images as constructed performances. The performance may also be seen as contextualization. Through the performance and setting, the image is contextualized, situated in a specific time and place. The process can be conscious, but equally it can be accidental. This concept of contextualization, understood in an archaeographic sense, will be used in the following analysis to explore the different modes of employing photographs in the trade of antiquities, with a particular focus on Greek vases. When looking at photographs used in the art market, it is paramount to consider them as objects—­as three-­dimensional artefacts as well as two-­dimensional images.11 Recent research attests to a growing interest in the materiality of photo­ graphs, stressing how this physical ‘thingness’ of the photograph ‘encompasses processes of intention, making, distributing, consuming, using, discarding and recycling’.12 While the printed image is an essential aspect of the photograph, in the context of the art market the medium on which the image is printed is also important as a source of information. Photographs can be reproduced in mul­tiple copies; they can exchange hands easily and carry information in the form of annotations about the origin and history of the image. This in fact also applies to digital photographs, which can incorporate the same metadata

  Shanks and Svabo 2013.    10  Shanks and Svabo 2013: 98. 12   Breitbach 2011; Edwards and Hart 2004.   Edwards and Hart 2004: 1.

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but permit much faster dissemination through digital sharing.13 But the physical object of the printed image has a number of social dimensions that potentially extend beyond the image imprinted in the photographic emulsion; and to date there has been little focus in scholarship on this aspect of photographs. One of the first to exploit the material quality of photographs was Heinrich Schliemann (1822–90), who sent hundreds of images around the world to colleagues. In so doing he used them as objects of documentation but also as an element in the dialogue he was conducting with scholars, as a way of presenting his argument about Troy.14 Photographs first turn up in sales catalogues roughly at the same time as they begin to appear in academic publications—­or, to be precise, other types of archaeological publication, as sales catalogues in this formative period had much in common with more scholarly genres. The object catalogues of the nineteenth century do not differ much in format and presentation, regardless of whether they were published by museums, private collectors, or dealers. Owing to the blurred lines between scholarship and the antiquities trade at the time, the ways in which dealers and academics approached their material likewise did not differ greatly. It is a recognized aspect of the history of classical archaeology that many early excavations were carried out as a means to obtain objects for collections; and the selling of excavated objects on the market was part of the process.15 During the later nineteenth century, photographs became an important tool in advertising archaeological discoveries among academic peers as much as potential buyers. They were used to disseminate information, build networks, and find customers. Heinrich Schliemann regularly dispatched photographs of his Trojan excavations to Charles Newton at the British Museum before offering his collection of finds from the site to the museum for £50,000 in 1873.16 However, during the second half of the nineteenth and the early part of the twentieth century, one can discern that photographs of Greek vases began to look different, depending on the circles they were intended to circulate and function in. Arguably while the photographs contextualized their subject in different ways, the visual ­methods by which they ‘performed’ the vases’ meaning and value influenced each other across academic and commercial genres of publication. This chapter explores the way in which photographs were put to different uses in auction catalogues, on the one hand, and in dealers’ archives on the other.

  I will not go further into the question of digital photographs, but see for instance Sassoon 2004.   Adam 1990. I will discuss Heinrich Schliemann’s use of photography in a forthcoming paper. 15   There are several examples of this, for instance Luigi Cesnola’s excavations in Cyprus (see Masson 1996) or Lucien Bonaparte’s excavations in Vulci (Nørskov 2009). 16   Fitton 1990: 9–19. 13 14

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T H E USE OF PHOTOGR A PHS I N AUCT ION C ATA L OGU E S

The auction catalogue as a publication format developed during the nineteenth century from a mere list of objects to a rather detailed and learned presentation of the material that was being offered for sale. Catalogues of large vase collections originated in Paris in the 1820s and 30s, but these early examples lacked illustrations. Drawings of generic vase shapes were sometimes included as plates at the end of the catalogue to reduce the length of the descriptions. Although in some instances there were drawings of the painted iconography of the most highly valued vases, in general illustrations were uncommon. In this respect auction catalogues resembled museum catalogues of the time, which consisted of descriptions of varying length without illustrations.17 Expectations changed during the 1870s, when photographs began to appear in auction catalogues. One of the most prolific authors of such auction catalogues at the time was Wilhelm Fröhner (1834–1925). The catalogues of Wilhelm Fröhner constitute a distinctive class within the genre.18 Born in Germany, Fröhner moved to Paris in 1859 and lived there for the rest of his life. He soon became an adjunct of the Louvre and part of the group of scholars supporting Napoleon III in his scholarly ambitions, until he was appointed curator in 1867.19 Following his host country’s defeat in the Franco-­Prussian War, he was denounced as a Prussian spy by colleagues at the museum and was briefly imprisoned before losing his position. From 1871 to 1919, Fröhner made a living by writing auction catalogues and publishing private collections. He became an exceptionally skilled cataloguer, widely praised for his meticulous and swift work. His catalogues are among the first to regularly feature photographs. Greek vases are slow to appear in photographs in comparison to other types of artefacts, such as sculpture. Prior to the twentieth century, auction catalogues include hardly any photographs of vases. One of the earliest catalogues with such photographs is the 1878 presentation of the Barre collection.20 The collector Albert Désiré Barre (1818–78) was an engraver at the Paris Mint and a designer of stamps. In the introduction to the catalogue, Fröhner praises the collection for its unique character. He highlights certain groups—­terracottas, painted vases, and Cypriote antiquities—­and within these areas, as the text stresses, the collection is ‘complete’ from an aesthetic perspective. The terracottas are singled out for their excellent quality: ‘elles feraient l’ornement d’un musée’.21

17   Important exceptions are the catalogues of the William Hamilton collection. As has been pointed out by several scholars, these catalogues also functioned as promotion, and Michael Vickers has suggested this to be the primary function (Vickers 1987: 106; see also Jenkins 1996: 62). On these publications, see contributions by M. Gaifman, A. Smith, and A. Petsalis-­Diomidis in this volume. 18  Hellmann 1992.   19 Laronde 2011.   20 Fröhner 1878.   21  Fröhner 1878: preface.

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F igure 11.3 a–­b.  Two versions of a plate showing two red-­figure amphorae in the auction catalogue of Passavant-­Gontard 1929. Photograph a) from catalogue in the DAI, Rome (author); photograph b) from catalogue in Heidelberg (Cassirer and Helbing 1929, pl. IV).

The catalogue shows impressive variation in its illustrations. They include drawings of figurines and fine engravings with shading conveying the three-­ dimensional quality of the objects, and drawings of vase paintings rendered in lines and black infill, or as pure line drawings. Some illustrations are integrated into the text. At the back of the catalogue a number of plates have been added, showing coloured drawings of red-­figure vase paintings. The photographs all show Tanagra figurines, clearly underlining the preference for such objects in this period. Whereas the drawings are used as ways of focusing attention on specific elements of the objects—­such as the painted decoration on vases—­the photo­ graphs group some of the objects together, situating them in a specific space, on a table. This definition of context is typical for the earliest use of photographs in the auction catalogues. An example of vases presented in a manner comparable to the photographs of  Tanagra figurines comes from the 1929 catalogue of the collection of the  Frankfurt businessman Richard von Passavant-­ Gontard (1852–1923) (Figure 11.3). In fact two copies of the catalogue—­one held in Rome, the other in Heidelberg—­show two slightly different photographs of the same objects, under the same plate number.22 The photographs show two red-­figure am­phorae, lots 35 and 38, one of five plates illustrating Greek vases in the publication. The photograph in Heidelberg shows them standing on a table with the border of the table and the wall visible in the background. The smaller one is placed on a black stand, making it appear almost as tall as the other. The photograph in the 22   Cassirer and Helbing 1929: pl. IV. The catalogue in Rome was studied in 2012 at the German Archaeological Institute, the one in Heidelberg in the digital version found in their database: http://digi. ub.uni-­heidelberg.de/diglit/helbing1931_12_01 (accessed 30 June 2017). The two vases are lot 35: Neck amphora, Fondatione Bodmer BAPD 201911, and neck amphora, present location unknown, BAPD 207377.

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catalogue in Rome shows the same installation, but white drapery has been added to cover the table and the black stand. The drapery creates two effects: firstly, as the black stand is rendered invisible, the smaller vase looks as if it has been placed further away from the camera; secondly, the transition from the table to the background is less conspicuous, creating a featureless white space. At the same time, the shadows of the vases add depth to the composition and evoke an architectural space in between the vessels. On closer inspection one can also make out folds in the drapery on the stand, which disrupts the illusion that the vases are suspended in infinite space, even though they were clearly intended to be shown as autonomous objects whose meaning did not depend on context. The role of the background is to isolate the objects, but a closer look at the image reveals a breakdown in the intended effect. This decontextualization of objects would soon become standard in auction and museum catalogues. By erasing the background, the vases are effectively placed beyond the usual space inhabited by humans. In several instances larger numbers of objects are arranged on the same plate, as in an example from the 1912 catalogue of the collections of Lambros and Dattari (Figure 11.4).23 The collectors were both dealers, Jean P. Lambros (1843–1909) operating in Athens and Giovanni Dattari (1858–1923) in Cairo, both specializing in coins and antiquities.24 The plate shows nineteen vases arranged in three rows with the largest, a column crater, placed in the centre and the others in a symmetric grouping in which size and shape define the location of the vases. Here the background is erased; most probably the photographs of the vessels were taken individually and then mounted in the manner of a collage before the reproduction. While the obliterated background decontextualizes the subjects and deprives them of their three-­dimensionality, the arrangement creates a new aesthetic order. As the selection of vessels seems to be based on their complementary shapes and sizes rather than their style or chronology, aesthetic ordering therefore appears to be the dominant classificatory criterion in such photographs for auction catalogues. To be sure, there is a perfectly practical issue at stake in these photographs: namely, that one photograph of several objects offers a cost-­effective way of presenting an ensemble. Henry Talbot already emphasized this possibility of the new medium in his publication. He stressed the diverse potential of different types of photographs specifically in his comments on a still life capturing an arrangement of China vessels:

  Hirsch 1912.   For Lambros, see Galanakis 2011: 186, note 36, and for Dattari, Hagen and Ryholt 2016: 207. It is fairly common to see dealers’ collections offered in their entirety at auction. In this special case, Lambros had died three years before the auction, whereas Dattari was still alive. 23 24

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F igure 11.4.  Photograph in the auction catalogue of the Lambros and Dattari collections 1912. Photograph: Hirsch 1912, pl. VI.

From the specimen here given it is sufficiently manifest, that the whole cabinet of a Virtuoso and collector of old China might be depicted on paper in little more time than it would take him to make a written inventory describing it in the usual way. The more strange and fantastic the forms of his old teapots, the more advantage in having their pictures given instead of their descriptions. … The articles represented on this plate are numerous: but, however numerous the objects—­however complicated the arrangement—­the Camera depicts them all at once.25

The reason for the rarity of photographs of vases in early auction catalogues is clearly the inability of the medium to successfully show the painted decoration, which was perceived as the most important element of the vase. This is because the three-­dimensional, round shapes of the vases caused significant problems for photographers. Handmade and coloured drawings remained the most frequently   Talbot 1844: pl. III.

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used medium in the reproduction of Greek vases in such publications.26 Another reason for the delayed adoption of photography was the lack of colour. Whereas photography was already praised by Talbot for being the best means for reproducing classical sculpture, the colour scheme and shapes of painted vases prevented its widespread utilization for this class of objects.27

CON T E X T UA L I ZI NG T H E COL L ECT ION

Another kind of image which occurs in auction catalogues, albeit rarely, offers a photographic performance of the collection in an architectural setting. The 1936 catalogue of the collection of Arnold Ruesch (1882–1929) documents antiquities in a manner quite different to the traditional auction catalogue. The professor and director of the classical collection at the University of Zürich, Otto Waser, begins the preface of the catalogue thus: I still hear Mrs Beazley, the wife of the most important vase connoisseur, John Davidson Beazley in Oxford, up there on Zürichberg in Villa Ruesch, where I ­introduced the couple in September 1927, as she joked with me saying: “Please do not hold it against me when I say: This is the Zürich Museum!”28

Besides a large number of photographs of individual objects, the catalogue also includes some photographs that contextualize the collection in the house. Built in 1920–1 under the supervision of the architectural office of Müller and Freitag, it was inspired by Roman design and included a large peristyle (Figure 11.5).29 One photograph shows a corner of the house with a small fireplace with a chair and sofa in front of it. To the side there is a window offering a view onto the peristyle. The floor is decorated with mosaics; a bronze stand with a lamp is placed next to a small table supporting a bronze jug (perhaps ancient) containing flowers. Small-­scale antiquities adorn the mantelpiece, and above it a wooden shelf supports three large red-­figure vases. The setting reveals a number of references to both ancient living and modern collecting. The actual use of ancient objects as functional items in a modern house is an intriguing choice that confounds present-­day expectations about how antiquities should be treated. The arrangement of the objects is reminiscent of the earliest vase collections,

27   See contribution by N. Dietrich in this volume.   Talbot 1844: 23–4.  ‘Noch höre ich Frau Beazley, die Gattin des zurzeit gewiegtesten Vasenkenners, John Davidson Beazley in Oxford, droben am Zürichberg in der Villa Ruesch, wo ich im September 1927 das Ehepaar einführte, scherzend zu mir sagen: “Nehmen Sie es mir nicht übel, wenn ich behaupte: Dies hier ist das Museum Zürichs!” ’ Galerie Fischer 1936: 2. 29   Meyer 1930. 26 28

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F igure 11.5.  Interior of one of the rooms in Arnold Ruesch’s house in Zürich. Photograph: Galerie Fischer 1936, pl. 25.

where the vessels were often placed in libraries on bookshelves.30 Described as ‘Pompeian’ by Waser, Ruesch’s house was clearly inspired by architectural features from the site. Thus, this collecting tradition combined elements of ancient living   See for instance Nørskov 2002: 51–4; Coltman 2012; Schmidt 2014: 9–11.

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spaces with modern interior decoration to show potential buyers a pres­ti­gious mode of domestic display. Such contextualization is rare in photographs produced for the antiquities market. More commonly, auction catalogues follow the same visual conventions as scholarly publications, isolating the objects—­vases in particular—­from any textured background that could disturb their presentation. It is this de­con­text­ ual­ized ideal that prevailed.

PHOTOGR A PHS I N T H E A RCH I V E S OF A RT DE A L ER S

The photographs found in the dealers’ archives in Geneva in 1995 are quite different to what we have encountered so far. The archives of Giacomo Medici and other purveyors working in the second half of the twentieth century followed a tradition developed among antiquities dealers in the late nineteenth century. The archives of some dealers have found their way to scholarly institutions, as in the cases of the Giovanni Barracco Museum of Ancient Sculpture, which holds the archive of Ludwig Pollak (1868–1943), and the Institute of Classical Archaeology at the University of Erlangen, which holds the archive of Paul Arndt (1865–1937). A number of these archives are now being made available through digi­tiza­tion projects, among them the Joseph Brummer Records at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which can be browsed and searched through the institution’s web portal.31 The photographs in these archives have different purposes. Some derive from the specific negotiations about the sale of the objects they depict. Others provided a study tool for the dealer, who used the image collection in combination with a private library to identify and catalogue the objects offered for sale.

T H E JOH N M A R SH A L L A RCH I V E

My case study of a dealer’s archive is that of the British scholar and dealer John Marshall (1862–1928), who acted as an agent for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York from 1907 until his death in 1928. The archive was bequeathed by him to the British School at Rome. Bernard Ashmole, director of the British

31   For Ludwig Pollak, see Merkel Guldan 1988. For Paul Arndt, see the homepage of the department in Erlangen: http://www.aeria.phil.uni-­ erlangen.de/geschichte_html/geschichte.html (accessed 30 June 2017). The Brummer Archive is available on the homepage of the Metropolitan Museum of Art: http://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p16028coll9 (accessed 30 June 2017). See also Brennan 2015.

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School at Rome from 1925 to 1928, presents a fine portrait of Marshall during his years in Rome: During the past year the School suffered a severe loss by the death of a loyal friend and frank critic. Mr John Marshall, long resident in Rome, whose support and counsel have been of a value which it would be difficult to overestimate. He combined sensitive judgement, enthusiasm and fine humour with an intolerance of undue theorising, and although he was not widely known, wherever he was known his high ability as a judge of ancient art was fully recognised.32

John Marshall has been overshadowed by his better-­known friend and lover, the American collector and dealer Edward Perry Warren (1860–1928).33 But his photographic archive provides a nuanced picture of Marshall, especially if studied alongside his papers from Lewes House, the home he shared with Warren in East Sussex.34 The photographic archive has turned out to be a very rich source for understanding the relationships between dealers and collectors of antiquities during the early decades of the twentieth century.35 Marshall’s archive consists mainly of photographs with small card files attached. It offers a selection of photographs he kept for reference, rather than a full ­documentation of his commercial activities during the years covered by the ­documents. There are in total 2,215 photographic prints and a large collection of glass plate negatives made for Marshall by the Roman photographer Cesare Faraglia (c.1870–1950). Marshall’s grouping of the photographs shows how he used them. Group A includes photographs of objects bought by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (286 records—413 photographs); group B consists of objects offered for sale but not acquired (368 records—799 photographs); and lastly group C is a study collection consisting of museum photographs (681 records—885 photographs). The photographs constitute a varied corpus of images with regard to both the quality of the images and their aesthetics and composition. According to Alistair Crawford, who was the first to study the archive, the photographs comprise Marshall’s personal ‘reference material, the material he regarded as the finest and therefore the best to judge others by’; but upon closer consideration the selection of objects shown is clearly much broader than this statement would lead us

  B. Ashmole in the Annual Report of the British School at Athens, cited from Crawford 2003: 101. 34   Burdett and Goddard 1941; Sox 1991.   Now held in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. 35   The archive has been made accessible through the website of the British School at Rome: https:// marshall.bsr.ac.uk/. For discussion, see Petruccioli 2022. I am very grateful to Guido Petruccioli, who invited me to be part of the project and to work on the photographs of vases in John Marshall’s archive. I would also like to thank Valerie Scott and Cecilia Carponi at the British School in Rome for helping me with this article. 32 33

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to assume.36 Of the numerous photographs featuring sculpture, several were by accomplished photographers like Cesare Faraglia, who also worked for other archaeological institutes in Rome.37 When Marshall was working with Warren their efforts focused on Greek pottery for acquisition by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Warren considered vases to be an important type of object,38 whereas Marshall seems to have been more interested in sculpture. Or rather, his archive shows a much larger number of photographs of sculpture, although this disparity might also reflect the general resistance or hesitation to use photographs as a medium to illustrate vases. As a dealer’s communication tool, photographs were effective enough to outweigh the drawbacks discussed above, as is demonstrated in two ways by the examples from the Marshall archive: several photographs show more than one object grouped together, and frequently information was added on the print in pencil. On a photograph sent to Marshall from Paris by the dealer Feuardant, prices have been written on the back (Figure  11.6a–­b). Additionally, there is information on the front of the photograph: a Corinthian pyxis bears the number 8 written above it, a lekanis the number 7. The numbers connect the photo­ graph to three other photographs in the archive from the same year, showing a total offer of nine terracotta figurines, some of which are today in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.39 The current whereabouts of the vases are unknown. In the photograph they have been placed on a wooden shelf, the lekanis angled to render the image on the lid visible. The lid of a pyxis has also been set at an angle in order to make the decoration visible. In this example, it is the visibility of the

F igure 11.6 a–­b.  Obverse and reverse of a photograph from the Marshall archive showing a Corinthian pyxis and an Attic red-­figure lekanis. The price of the offer is written in pencil on the back of the photograph. Photograph by author, after John Marshall Archive, British School in Rome ID1147.

37 38   Crawford 2003; Nørskov 2022.   Bucolo 2016.   Nørskov 2002: 69–71.   Metropolitan Museum of Art inv. 25.78.23, 25.78.24, 25.78.26. See also Richter 1926.

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decoration that constitutes the main focus, not the background—­nothing has been done to erase or change the setting. Another example of the practice of grouping several objects together is a photo­graph of four very well-­preserved red-­figure vases on a table (Figure 11.7). The vases in fact belonged to Edward Perry Warren, as is indicated by the handwritten remark on the back of the photograph, and three of them were bought by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.40 The current location of the Apulian red-­ figure rhyton, conversely, is unknown; indeed, a note on the back of the photo­ graph states that the item was ‘excluded’. Whether this means that it was excluded from the offer or from the actual purchase by the Metropolitan Museum is unclear. The vases are placed symmetrically on the table with the highest, the hydria, in the middle and the rhyton in front in order to prevent it from concealing the decoration of the other vessels. The table is covered with a piece of cloth. The draped fabric itself has been added to the setting in order to provide a neutral background, with the intention of decontextualizing the objects and ensuring that their shape is more clearly defined. However, this effect is undercut

F igure 11.7.  Four red-­figure vases on a table. Photograph from the John Marshall Archive in the British School at Rome, 1921. John Marshall Archive ID192, photograph JM[PHP]-­05-­0379.

  The hydria is attributed to a hand near the Dikaios Painter, inv. 21.88.2, BAPD 200196. The stamnos is said to recall the style of the Barclay Painter, inv. 21.88.3, BAPD 214430, and the bell krater is attributed to the Menelaos Painter, inv. 21.88.4, BAPD 214487. 40

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by the wrinkles in the cloth and the fact that the outlines of the table can still be recognized in the image. Part of the interior of the room where the photograph was taken is also visible in the background. The background is so blurry that it is impossible to recognize anything specific; but it still places the objects in human space or ‘real life’, making them authentic by providing the image with actuality, a specific moment. Furthermore, the grouping of the objects could be taken to imply that they have a common provenance. In Marshall’s archive there are also examples of larger groups of disparate objects that may have been intended to suggest a single findspot. The Greek dealer Evangelos  P.  Triantaphyllos in particular used this method to document large quantities of items. In one of his consignments to Marshall, five photographs include a total of sixty-­nine objects (Figure 11.8). Marshall was not really interested in archaeological contexts: for him it was the artistic quality of the objects that mattered. Given that the photograph was not ‘composed’ to satisfy his archaeological interests, the assemblage reflects above all Triantaphyllos’s practical use of the technology. Aesthetic considerations inspired by exhibitions may also have influenced the compositional choices in these photographs as much as those of the first photographic illustrations of pottery in archaeological publications. In the Atlas Trojanischer Alterthümer, published in 1874, Heinrich Schliemann grouped various objects from his excavation, indicating with numbered labels on the plates the depth at which the finds were made. Apart from this contextual information conveyed through numerical references, the groups on the images were arranged with decorative considerations in mind, as the balanced composition within the frame of the photograph appears to have guided the presentation of the objects.41 Such aesthetic considerations also seem to underlie compositional choices in Triantaphyllos’s photograph. Two larger vases are presented above, a Rhodian Fikellura amphora and a black-­ figure amphora, and three black-­figure aryballoi below. Three marble alabastra are placed upside down, one between the two large vessels and one at each end of the row of alabastra, creating a triangular alignment in the image. The objects are placed on small shelves covered with a cloth that shows up greyish in the photograph and extends over the background. The cloth’s use recalls drapery on a theatre stage, arranged to create a defined space for the objects. The Fikellura vase was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1923, nine years after the photograph was sent to Marshall. It had originally been published by Cesnola in 1877 among his finds from Cyprus.42 In this photograph the amphora is grouped with objects which all purportedly came from Rhodes—­which was   Adam 1990.   Metropolitan Museum of Art 23.160.35; see Richter 1924: 97–8. It was published in a drawing by Cesnola in 1877. 41 42

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F igure 11.8.  A group of objects offered to John Marshall in 1914 by the Greek dealer E. P. Triantaphyllos. John Marshall Archive ID580, British School at Rome, photograph JM[PHP]-­15-­1121.

clearly not the case. Cesnola sold a large part of his collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1877, but during the 1870s other parts were sold to museums at auction and probably in private sales as well. It is not known where the Fikellura vase was located before it became part of Triantaphyllos’s stock. He must have combined the vase with the Rhodian objects for stylistic reasons and possibly to imply a common Rhodian provenance.43

  Masson 1996.

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The background in the Triantaphyllos photograph provided a dark contrast to the marble alabastra, accentuating their light colour. Dark background is normally used for marble sculpture, creating an apparently limitless space that simultaneously emphasizes the contour of the objects. Vases, on the other hand, do not stand out as clearly against dark backgrounds. Other examples from Marshall’s archive show the use of white or light drapery for this class of objects. An ex­ample is the photograph of an Etruscan impasto vase offered to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1925 (Figure 11.9).44 The image shows how drapery was used to create a neutral background, to isolate the object; but as the photograph was taken from a low angle, the upper part gives a glimpse of the room behind. We can make out the corner of a lamp and the handle on a cupboard door. In this

F igure 11.9.  Etruscan impasto bowl on a high foot offered to John Marshall in 1925 by de Angelis. Photograph from the John Marshall Archive in the British School at Rome, 1925. John Marshall Archive, photograph ID237, JM[PHP]-­06-­0460.

  Etruscan white-­on-­red ware, Metropolitan Museum of Art 25.78.67.

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example the cloth is so wrinkled that it creates a visibly new context for the object—­not a neutral background but an unruly texture. We gain access to the room of the dealer and get to see just enough of the interior to allow us to im­agine the setting. Watson and Todeschini’s book describes how the investigator Pellegrini began to look beyond the objects in the photographs of the Medici archive, investigating the interiors of the rooms and the similarities between the settings. As a result he was able to connect some of the photographs, creating a network of objects by means of glimpsed interiors.45 The photographs of sculpture in Marshall’s archive provide similar viewsheds of architectural spaces and open up further connections beyond the objects themselves; but this is not quite as clear in the photographs of the vases, which are fewer and more diverse.46 Arguably the non-­neutral background, which I would call a contextualizing background, becomes a kind of trademark in the dealers’ photographs. In another photograph, showing a red-­figure bell krater, the bookshelves in the background convey a meaningful setting through a few key signifiers from the collector’s home.47 The overall impression is somewhat cluttered but develops a narrative that highlights the item’s collectable status (Figure  11.10). The image could be considered a snapshot version of the auction catalogue photograph capturing the collector’s home, such the example above from the Ruesch sale. In the photograph from the Marshall archive the focus is more specifically on the object, whereas the photographs in the auction catalogue amount to an architectural staging of the items. The foremost purpose of the photographs of dealers was to present the objects to potential buyers or ­middlemen. The photographs accordingly strive to answer the most pressing questions which the intended viewers had in mind concerning the pieces’ quality, authenticity, and legal status. To be sure, quality and authenticity were primarily assured through the connoisseurship of the dealer. But since the composition of the photographic image could also be employed to stress the authenticity of the object, a less formal mode of photography was sometimes preferred. Such ‘quotidian’ photographs were never reproduced in sales catalogues or scholarly publications, as such ­genres strove to attain—­as we have seen—­decontextualized presentation.

  Watson and Todeschini 2007: 62.   On photographs of sculpture in the Marshall archive, see Nørskov 2022. 47   Metropolitan Museum of Art 24.97.30, BAPD 214496. Attributed by Beazley to the Painter of London D497. 45 46

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F igure 11.10.  Red-­figure bell krater offered to John Marshall by Dr Filippo Falanga. The piece was later acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 24.97.30. Photograph from the John Marshall Archive, British School at Rome, ID224, JM[PHP]-­06-­0425.

CONCLUSION

The use of photographs by the art trade can consequently be seen to follow two different tracks. One is the use of photographs in the publication of illustrated auction catalogues. Auction houses and authors of auction catalogues were ­generally slow to include photographs of Greek pottery, as drawings were much more efficient in illustrating what were perceived as the essential elements of the vases—­that is, the images and the colour schemes in which they were rendered. Even the shape was difficult to capture photographically. When photographs became a more common element of auction catalogues during the early decades of the twentieth century, they were utilized to illustrate groups of vases on a single plate, often in aesthetic arrangements based on the vessels’ shape and size. Set against plain black or white backgrounds, the vessels were often shown in featureless settings that transcended everyday perceptions of time and space. In a few instances another kind of photography was employed, one which con­text­ ual­ized the objects in the private surroundings of the collector. In this type of

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photograph the context emerges as an essential selling point—­the collector’s private domestic space underlines the accomplished character of the collection. The other track is the use of photographs by antiquities dealers in their own private archives. Here the photographs are much more diverse. The objects are staged in different surroundings which are intended to enhance the quality of the objects by placing them against neutral backgrounds. But the resulting images commonly have the opposite effect. The drapery used to isolate the objects tends to emphasize surroundings through the presence of folds in the fabric and its careless arrangement. The photographs’ field of view is often not limited to the area controlled by the artificial backdrop and often shows the space above or at the sides, offering us glimpses into the room of the dealer or photo­ grapher, into the process of producing the photographs and the context of this production. This feature links to the photographs that emerge from present-­day dealers’ archives, establishing a connection and a tradition between nineteenthand twentieth-­century practices and even those of today. Owing to the widespread availability of Polaroid cameras since the 1970s, it became even easier for the tomb robbers—­so-­called tombaroli—­and dealers to document and take photo­graphs for potential buyers. Therefore, the photographic series of these later archives are much more voluminous, one could say more complete, than those from the earlier archives. Just as the Medici archive has opened up understandings of the procedures and networks of the illegal trade in the second half of the twentieth century, the photographs from the first half of the century can surely provide new insights into the workings of the art market then. We can see photographs that have changed hands, objects annotated with writing and signs of wear, and layers upon layers of untold histories. Through these documents the objects acquire a history—­they are part of a spatial setting, staged, performed, and alive in a narrative that extends from the past into the present. This is quite a different story to that told by the majority of photographs in scholarly books depicting art pieces that remain, at least in terms of their visual construction, lost in time and space.

BI BL IOGR A PH Y A dam , H. C hr . 1990. ‘Heinrich Schliemann und die Photographie’, in B. von Dewitz (ed.), Das Land der Griechen mit der Seele suchen: Photographien des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts (Cologne: Römisch-Germanisches Museum), 38–41. B arthes , R. 1982. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (London: Cape). B ohrer , F. N. 2011. Photography and Archaeology (London: Reaktion Books). B reitbach , J. 2011. ‘The Photo-as-Thing’, European Journal of English Studies 15.1: 31–43.

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B rennan , C. 2015. ‘The Brummer Archive and the Business of Art’, Journal of History of Collections 27.3: 455–68. B ucolo , R. 2016. ‘Cesare Faraglia: fotografo degli Istituti e Scuole di Archeologia’, Conference Poster: Archeologia e documentazione fotografica d’archivio. Dal dagherrotipo all’avvento della fotografia digitale, AQUILEIA, 28–29 April 2016. B urdett , O., and E.  H.  G oddard . 1941. Edward Perry Warren: The Biography of a Connoisseur (London: Christophers). B use , P. 2010. ‘The Polaroid Image as Photo-Object’, Journal of Visual Culture 9.2: 189–207. C assirer , P., and H.  H elbing . 1929. Antike Kleinkunst der Sammlung  R.  von Passavant-Gontard, Frankfurt am Main. Versteigerung 5. Dezember (Frankfurt am Main: Paul Cassirer). C oltman , V. 2012. ‘The Most Ancient Monuments of the Fine Arts: Collecting and Displaying Greek Vases in Early Nineteenth-Century English Interiors’, in V. Coltman (ed.), Making Sense of Greek Vases (Exeter: University of Exeter Press), 121–39. C rawford , A. 2003. ‘John Marshall: Dealer in Antiquities and Collector of Photographs’, History of Photography 27.2: 99–110. E dwards , E., and J. H art (eds). 2004. Photographs Objects Histories: On the Materiality of the Image (London: Routledge). F itton , J.  L. 1990. Heinrich Schliemann and the British Museum (London: British Museum Occasional Papers 82). F röhner , W. 1878. Collection de M. Albert B***, Antiquités grecques, vases peints de grand Grèce et de l’attique, terre cuites de Tanagra, poterie et verres chypriotes (Paris: Pillet and Dumoulin). G alanakis , Y. 2011. ‘An Unpublished Stirrup Jar from Athens and the 1871–2 Private Excavations in the Outer Kerameikos’, Annual of the British School in Athens 106: 167–200. G alerie F ischer . 1936. Sammlung  A.  Ruesch, Zürich. Griechische, etruskische und römische Altertümer (Lucerne: Galerie Fischer). G ill , D.  W.  J., and C.  T sirogiannis . 2011. ‘Polaroids from the Medici Dossier: Continued Sightings on the Market’, Journal of Art Crime 5: 27–33. H agen , F., and K.  R yholt . 2016. The Antiquities Trade in Egypt 1880–1930: The  H.  O.  Lange Papers (Copenhagen: The Royal Danish Academy of Letters and Sciences). H ellmann , M.-C hr . 1992. ‘Wilhelm Froehner, un collectionneur pas comme les autres’, in A.-F. Laurens and K. Pomian (eds), L’Anticomanie, la collection d’antiquités aux XVIIIXe et XIXe siècles (Paris: École des hautes études en sciences sociales), 251–64. H irsch , J. 1912. Collections de feu M.  Jean  P.  Lambros d’Athens et de M.  Giovanni Dattari du Caire: antiquités égyptiennes, grecques et romaines. Vente à Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 17–19 juin (Paris: Drouot). J enkins , I. 1996. ‘ “Contemporary Minds”: William Hamilton’s Affair with Antiquity’, in I. Jenkins and K. Sloan (eds), Vases and Volcanoes: Sir William Hamilton and His Collection (London: British Museum), 40–64.

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L aronde , A. 2011. ‘Qui conseillait Napoléon III en matière d’archéologie et d’histoire’, in A. Laronde, P. Toubert, and J. Leclant (eds), Histoire et archéologie méditerranéennes sous Napoléon III: actes du 21e colloque de la Villa Kérylos à Beaulieu-sur-Mer les 8 et 9 oct. 2010, Cahiers de la Villa Kérylos, 22 (Paris: AIBL), 57–67. L yons , C.  L. 2005. ‘The Art and Science of Antiquity in Nineteenth Century Photography’, in C. L. Lyons, J. K. Papadopoulos, L. S. Stewart, and A. SzegedyMaszak (eds), Antiquity and Photography: Early Views of Ancient Mediterranean Sites (Los Angeles, CA: The J. Paul Getty Museum), 22–65. L yons , C. L., J. K. P apadopoulos , L. S. S tewart , and A. S zegedy -M aszak (eds). 2005. Antiquity and Photography: Early Views of Ancient Mediterranean Sites (Los Angeles, CA: The J. Paul Getty Museum). M aimon , V. 2008. ‘Displaced Origins: William Henry Fox Talbot’s The Pencil of Nature’, History of Photography 32.4: 314–25. M asson , O. 1996. ‘La dispersion des antiquités chypriotes: les deux collections Cesnola’, Cahiers du Centre d’Etudes Chypriotes 25: 3–28. M erkel G uldan , M. 1988. Die Tagebücher von Ludwig Pollak: Kennerschaft und Kunsthandel in Rom, 1893–1934 (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften). M eyer , P. 1930. ‘Das Haus Arnold Ruesch: Architeckten Müller & Freytag’, Das Werk. Architektur und Kunst 17.12: 378–82. N ørskov , V. 2002. Greek Vases in New Contexts: The Collecting and Trading of Greek Vases: An Aspect of the Modern Reception of Antiquity (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press). N ørskov , V. 2009. ‘The Affairs of Lucien Bonaparte and the Impact on the Study of Greek Vases’, in V. Nørskov, L. Hannestad, C. Isler-Kerényi, and S. Lewis (eds), The World of Greek Vases, Analecta Romana Instituti Danici 41 (Rome: Instituti Danici), 63–76. N ørskov , V. 2022. ‘The Photographs in John Marshall’s Archive’, in G.  Petruccioli (ed.), Ancient Art and its Commerce in Early Twentieth-Century Europe: A Collection of Essays Written by the Participants of the John Marshall Archive Project (Oxford: Archaeopress), 54–71. P etruccioli , G. 2022. Ancient Art and its Commerce in Early Twentieth-Century Europe: A Collection of Essays Written by the Participants of the John Marshall Archive Project (Oxford: Archaeopress). R ichter , G. M. 1924. ‘Early Greek and Etruscan Vases: Recent Acquisitions’, Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 19.4: 97–100. R ichter , G.  M. 1926. ‘New Accessions in the Classical Department’, Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 21.3: 81–2. S assoon , J. 2004. ‘Photographic Materiality in the Age of Digital Reproduction’, in E. Edwards and J. Hart (eds), Photographs Objects Histories: On the Materiality of the Image (London: Routledge), 186–202. S chmidt , S. 2014. ‘Sammeln und Forschen: Wege zu griechischen Vasen’, in S. Schmidt and M. Steinhardt (eds), Sammeln und Erforschen: Griechisen Vasen in neuzeitlichen Sammlungen, Beihefte zum Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum VI (Munich: Verlag Beck), 7–20.

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S hanks , M., and C. S vabo . 2013. ‘Archaeology and Photography: A Pragmatology’, in A. Ruibal (ed.), Reclaiming Archaeology (London: Routledge), 89–102. S ox , D. 1991. Bachelors of Art: Edward Perry Warren and the Lewes House Brotherhood (London: Fourth Estate). T albot , H. F ox . 1844. The Pencil of Nature (London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans). T sirogiannis , C. 2013. ‘Something Is Confidential in the State of Christie’s’, Journal of Art Crime 9: 3–19. T sirogiannis , C. 2014. ‘A South Italian Bell-Krater by Python in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’, Journal of Art Crime 11: 63–8. T sirogiannis , C. 2016. ‘False Closure? Known Unknowns in Repatriated Antiquities Cases’, International Journal of Cultural Property 23.4: 407–31. V ickers , M. 1987. ‘Value and Simplicity: Eighteenth-Century Taste and the Study of Greek Vases’, Past and Present 116: 98–137. W atson , P., and C.  T odeschini . 2007. The Medici Conspiracy: The Illicit Journey of Looted Antiquities: From Italy’s Tomb Raiders to the World’s Greatest Museums (New York: Public Affairs).

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Afterword Caspar Meyer

This volume has delved into a rich four-­hundred-­year-­long tradition of depicting a type of artefact that has been pivotal to many visions of classical antiquity as a historical past and aesthetic future of the modern West. The breadth of materials and contexts is impressive by any standard. Some visualizations have been made to advertise the beauty and prestige of the objects’ decoration, others their his­ tor­ic­al or documentary value as artefacts. Some have been devised to stress contemporary relevance and authenticity, others old age or incompleteness. In some instances, they have even been used as stand-­ins for objects that are forever out of reach or no longer exist—­or marshalled to make overblown claims about the Greeks and why we should still care about them. Collectively the authors of this volume have shown that Greek vases are brought to life as objects of aesthetic or scientific interest through visual intermediaries that have taken many different forms. ‘Brought to life’ is more than a rhetorical flourish in this instance. On multiple occasions the discussions have demonstrated that understanding how an image works is just as important as analysing what it shows. An image brings its subject to life by reconfiguring the people, perceptions, and ideas around it. This reconfiguration can be accomplished by many means other than the communicated content, such as stylistic or expressive choices, the qualities of the drawings as artefacts, and the extent to which these characteristics fit with the pre-­existing conditions of reception. The distinction between pictorial content and form is, of course, an analytical strategy rather than a dichotomy inherent in the images. It is also a tired one, at that, but useful for mapping out the closing remarks in this afterword. Let me begin with terminology. The images of vases explored in this book have been variously referred to as reproductions, illustrations, visualizations, and

Caspar Meyer, Afterword In: Drawing the Greek Vase. Edited by: Caspar Meyer and Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis, Oxford University Press. © Caspar Meyer and Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192856128.003.0012

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representations. Each of these terms has its own baggage and possibilities—­too many for the editors of this volume to be overly prescriptive about their usage. On one level some of the designations have straightforward functional def­in­ itions. For instance, reproduction usually implies duplication by mechanical or digital means to enable the dissemination of images through books or electronic media. Illustration, on the other hand, highlights the image’s close association with words. Illustrations are meant to provide visual supports that clarify or substantiate a point developed in the surrounding text. The mutual dependence is obvious in the captions devised to guide the perception and interpretation of images in books and thereby reinforce the message of the text. Yet, on another level, these terms can involve assumptions about the mimetic relationship between the object and its depiction, which are rarely made explicit. Take the archaeological illustration for instance. The history of illustrating artefacts is often described as progressing towards documents that can ‘act as a true record of the object and its material condition and show any diagnostic features and manufacturing techniques present’.1 Its genealogy is thought to have evolved from the excessively ‘aestheticizing’ and ‘unscientific’ approaches of the eighteenth-­century antiquarians, through the birth of the ‘true’ modern artefact illustration in the archaeological recording methods of General Pitt-­Rivers and his nineteenth-­century peers, all the way to the different house styles adopted by modern publication series and heritage bodies.2 Though illustrators freely admit that their work draws on conventions, the origin and purpose of these conventions remain unexamined. If archaeological illustrations are both ‘true’ and conventional, what does truth stand for in this context? The term ‘visualization’ is concurrently broader in scope and more precise with regard to the mediatory power of the image. Whereas archaeological illustration is associated with notions of mimetic clarity, visualization can designate diagrammatic representations of data sets (in maps, tables, charts, graphs, and so on) as well as pictorial renderings or reconstructions of objects and sites. The defining criterion that subsumes this wide array of graphic products under the same umbrella is the process of transformation required to turn data or any form of information into representations that can be transmitted and perceived.3 In academic visualizations this transformation is expected to be rule-­bound, regardless of whether the similarity of the resulting representation adheres to consistent perceptual resemblances to the original (as is the case in artefact illustrations) or to geometric or algebraic transformations expressing the internal relationship of its parts (as is the case in diagrams).4 The term ‘visualization’ therefore makes the process of transformation explicit, whereas ‘illustration’ tends to cloak it under 2 3   Nylund 2009: 18.   Nylund 2009: 18–19.   Llobera 2011: 195.   On diagrams as a type of icon, see Bredekamp, Dünkel, and Schneider 2015: 153.

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common-­sense notions of visual accuracy or technical competence. On closer reflection, however, it is clear that illustration always presumes transformation, whether it is achieved through bare eyes and hands or involves instruments to control the illustrator’s gestures. The present volume has put forward a case for acknowledging this process of transformation as a source of vitality rather than a means to an end or a necessary evil. After all, it is through graphic assimilation or interpretation that the represented object can be made relevant, meaningful, or desirable in new contexts of reception. As many examples in the foregoing pages have shown, the work of transformation perennially revives interest in Greek vases and gives new afterlives to these objects. Acknowledging the forces of transformation entails first of all a productive understanding of subjectivity as a prerequisite to building consensus. Rather than objectivity, it is agreed-­upon standards that allow artists and academics to say and do things in meaningful ways. Images underpin the process of consensus-­ building through the subjective conventions embedded in them, and images allow objects to enter the fray of debate by shaping new positions or overturning old ones. What matters for the emergence of ideas is the effort invested in making these conventions explicit and the degree to which they are allowed to disrupt accepted criteria of objectivity or dispassionate presentation.5 Even more important for understanding how images bring objects to life is to acknowledge the continually evolving relationships between the person who makes the images, the objects that are being depicted, and the extended nexus of sociomaterial relations that surround them. Images circulate in these networks not just as bearers of information but also as objects in their own right—­objects that can be shared, multiplied, altered, archived, and conserved (or neglected). The loose-­leaf drawings, paintings, and books explored in this volume demand physical as much as ocular engagement and bring the depicted vases to life through interaction as much as intellection. In the broader trends of scholarship, this shift in emphasis from more semiotic to more material approaches is associated with the rise of actor-­network theory and the ‘ontological turn’, which have echoed in studies of visual media especially among the proponents of ‘symmetrical archaeology’.6 In setting out the relevance of such approaches to the subject of this volume I touch on the concept of representation, perhaps the most general term used to designate pictures of vases or indeed of any other objects. It is also the most problematic one according to ontological theorists. They argue that our academic dependence on language to make sense of the world has primed scholarly discourse to substitute

  On this point, see Molyneaux 1997: 2–3; Balm 2016: 4.   Witmore 2009; Olsen, Shanks, Webmoor, and Witmore 2012: 79–135; Shanks and Webmoor 2013.

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all matter with some form of cultural representation.7 The ontological turn invites us to overcome rationalizations that posit objects and people as having prior identities in favour of a methodological openness that conceives of properties as emerging from the ever-­shifting relationships of the material world. In such a framework, it no longer makes sense to investigate images for their representational content or mimetic fidelity. Instead, this perspective argues for closer attention to the practices through which things come into being and come into relationships with people. Archaeologists now admit that material traces of the past are not ‘out there’ awaiting discovery as evidence but are created through interpretation ‘at the trowel’s edge’ or, in the context of this volume, through the stroke of the draughtsperson’s pen.8 All the same, the work of excavators and other material culture specialists continues to depend on the hope that the artefacts emerging into consciousness cannot be completely accommodated within existing perceptions—­that something substantive survives from the past and forces the worldviews of the present to adapt.9

DR AW I NG ACROS S T I M E

This volume has worked to bring out the importance of relational processes by focusing on drawing as a procedure through which archaeologists and art his­ tor­ians learn about the objects they investigate and convert them into know­ ledge or aesthetic models. The choice of concentrating on drawings naturally also evokes drawing as an activity that enmeshes objects and minds in generative exchange. As an initial encounter with the Greek vase, drawing still marks an inaugural moment of contact that launches the object on a journey of trans­ form­ations, from its inspection in excavation trenches and study rooms to manifold re-evaluations in art and debate. Drawing also bridges the time between those meta­morph­oses—­in more than one way. As a finished product, a drawing can be transferred and reproduced and, as a result, lends the ideas embedded in it some degree of currency across time and place. As a practice, drawing can also bridge time in the negative sense of denying the temporality of the depicted object. This suppression of the object’s temporal existence is epitomized in the standard archaeological illustrations that rely on strict frontal projection and monochrome outlines to accentuate the artefact’s typological characteristics while omitting the tool marks or signs of wear that reveal its history of creation and use. In drawings of wheel-­thrown pottery, the effects of this technique are well known from the countless orthographic projections of rim sherds and 7 8

  See esp. Butler 1989 and Barad 2003. 9   Hodder 1997: 693.   Edgeworth 2012: 77–8.

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F igure 12.1.  Inked profile drawings of Archaic and Classical Attic cups from the Athenian Agora. The vessels are shown in cutaway side view in order to depict the exterior surface and the section of the three-­dimensional object in the same drawing. Photographs of the vessels are reproduced in the plate section of the same publication. The profile drawings feature almost exclusively in the Agora volumes on plain wares; those devoted to figure-­decorated pottery include very little visual information on vessel shapes. From Agora 12.2 (1970), fig. 4.

reconstructed vessels in excavation volumes which were drawn with the help of radius charts and profile gauges (Figure 12.1).10 The success of this linear technique is only partly due to the ease of reproduction in print. Prior to its dissemination in books, drawing technique responded to the needs of antiquarian classification, as the watercolours from Dal Pozzo’s paper museum demonstrate (see Meyer, Figure 2.3). In bringing out the typological aspect of the represented object, drawings done in this manner identify the object with an ideal chronological unit or unified temporal event. They embrace a rhetoric of certainty by claiming to depict their subjects as they ‘actually’ exist (or existed), beyond the flux of movement and time. At the same time, conversely, they provide the visual ‘proof’ for the chronological ordering of objects in archaeology and art history by asserting that artefacts originate, and remain, in a single moment of creation, erasing not only the history of their use and deposition but also of their rediscovery and reception. In recent years, archaeologists have begun to supplement the observer-­centred chronological ordering that dominated archaeological interpretation with approaches that try to show how objects inflect the self-­awareness of social actors. 10

  For a recent introduction to drawing archaeological ceramics, see Collett 2017.

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Material culture enables continuous experience and creates intersections between memories and anticipated futures.11 Without objects our lives would be devoid of sensations as well as things to remember and look forward to or fear. The interest in human experience goes hand in hand with a new understanding of artefacts as palimpsests rather than types, with traces of overlapping activities of different durations leading to different degrees of erasure of earlier traces. In the study of ceramics, this theoretical perspective is reflected in the attention given to biographies of whole pots—­from creation, use, repair, and deposition to rediscovery, reuse, representation, and display. Diagnostic traces can include signs of physical wear, such as knife cuts or foot-­ring abrasion, as well as chemical changes to the ceramic fabric resulting from different ways of using and storing pottery vessels. More recently, this approach has also encompassed the post-­ breakage history of individual sherds, exploring the transformations which pottery undergoes after its use as a vessel and incorporation into an archaeological deposit.12 Analysis of breakage patterns and surfaces—­the degree to which they are worn, weathered, or burnt—­can reveal how individual pots were broken and their fragments distributed on a site, which, by extension, can divulge how the objects were once bound up in the rhythms of daily life. In a similar vein, conservators and curators show a growing interest in the stories which museum pieces can reveal through examination of modern signs of ‘restorative’ intervention, such as gluing, mending, overpainting, etc.13 Such methodological shifts, however, have barely taken hold in classical archaeology, not least because illustrations of pottery done according to the established norms fail to transmit information on the object’s involvement in past practices.14 As so often in the study of visualizations, it turns out that graphic artefacts embody the presumptions on which their discipline is built without making those assumptions explicit. Although part of a much larger movement towards a scientific understanding of past and present, outline illustration and the restoration of pottery dramatically shaped the way that vases came to be seen and understood. Frozen in ink, Greek vases came to exemplify ideal types or exemplars of unique moments of creation rather than individual objects with their own distinctive history. While drawing played a significant role in this transformation, the critical investigation of its practice and products also promises a better understanding of the visual history of pottery, one that invites us to   See esp. Lucas 2005 and Olivier 2011.   On recent examples of pottery refitting to study deposition patterns, see Garrow, Beadsmoore, and Knight 2005; Brudenell and Cooper 2008; McFadyen 2016. 13   Kästner and Saunders 2016 is a key contribution to this aspect of vase scholarship. For recent studies of overpainting, see Schöne-­Denkinger 2007 and 2020. 14   For recent discussion of the potential of use wear analysis in classical archaeology (with emphasis on the problems posed by current recording techniques), see Villing 2020. 11 12

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F igure 12.2.  Carlo Bossoli, pencil drawing of two fragmentary Athenian black-­figure lekythoi from the collection of I. P. Blaramberg, probably 1830s. Archive of Odessa Archaeological Museum.

question the conventional perceptions and biases that have emerged around the Greek vase. The mass of images which the long history of modern vase receptions has given rise to hold out a multitude of potential case studies to evaluate different approaches and hone critical skills. For example, students of breakage patterns can find inspiration in a series of nineteenth-­century pencil drawings in Odessa by Carlo Bossoli, a Swiss-­Italian artist who became known for his Orientalizing views of the ‘Taurian peninsula’, published in London during the Crimean War.15 His training in stage set design at the Odessa opera might explain his unusual interest in conveying the drama of fragmentation. Drawings such as that in Figure 12.2 seem to revel in the idea of juxtaposing broken vessels like evocative ruins, some with crisp breaks (see the foot of the lekythos to the left) and others apparently slowly worn down through dull repetitive movement (to the right). 15

  Bossoli 1856; Bénézit 1966: 35.

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The expressive range of the sketch draws on the skilful alteration between pencil strokes that convey the hand movements through which they originated and others which sublimate such effects. Thanks to the pencil marks that stress the kinaesthetic and temporal conditions of their creation, the spectrum of lines in this sketch is incomparably broader than that seen in the inked illustrations discussed above.16 To adopt such interpretative drawing techniques in the depiction of objects would be in keeping with the ‘improvisatory’ methods now advocated in the on-­site drawing of plans and sections of archaeological features.17 Informal photography offers a parallel case to such improvisatory drawing. As N. Dietrich argues in his chapter, photographs that capture vases from ad hoc and mo­ment­ ary viewpoints (see Dietrich, Figure 10.9a–­b) are often better suited to suggest how painted pottery reveals itself to its user when handled as utilitarian equipment than are carefully staged studio shots.18 By registering glares, reflections, blurs, and skewed perspectives, such photographs highlight the interactive and playful design of Greek vases that standard methods of documentation seem to try so hard to conceal.

DR AW I NG CL OSER TO T H E (DIGI TA L) F U T U R E

The decision to focus on drawings of Greek vases in this volume arose from the prevalence, continuity, and deep influence of this medium. Despite its apparent technical simplicity, the study of drawings also presents valuable insights for digi­ tal engagements with archaeological heritage, an area of rapid technological advancement. Three-­dimensional objects can now be documented through, for instance, reflectance transformation imaging, laser scanning, structural light scanning, and photogrammetry. The resulting datasets can be turned into three-­ dimensional models which not only mimic with great fidelity the visible characteristics of the recorded objects but also permit manipulation in virtual space or even physical recreation through 3D printing.19 The power given to the user in interacting with these digital ‘surrogates’ seems to neutralize some of the more obvious biases inherent in two-­dimensional representations of objects, such as the formal distortions of a drawing and the particular viewpoint and lighting conditions of a photograph. In the study of Greek vases, digital modelling has played a minor role so far, which is partly due to technological and legal obs­ tacles. The reflective surfaces of black- and red-­figure pottery can be difficult to

  On the distinction between gestural and non-­gestural lines, see Cain 2010: 125–9.   McFadyen 2012. 18   On the role of ‘private’ or informal photography in archaeological recording, see Tringham 2010. 19   Olson, Caraher, and Heath 2015; Garstki 2017 and 2020: 20–35; Sapirstein 2018; Cooper 2019. 16 17

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capture through photogrammetry, the technology most widely accessible to researchers.20 Furthermore, museums are apprehensive about the legal and eth­ ic­al ramifications of releasing into the public infinitely reproducible and potentially marketable digital artefacts derived from items in their collections.21 But given that these obstacles are likely to be temporary, the discipline would do well to explore what digital media can offer the study of Greek vases. To date, applications of digital media have focused on the digitization and online dissemination of images created through analogue means, especially photography.22 While the technological demands and advantages of creating such web resources are difficult to overestimate, it is equally clear that technology is being used to tackle the same range of tasks—­if more quickly and comprehensively—­which previous researchers attempted through paper-­based archival research. As relevant content in the form of born-­digital data is set to proliferate in coming years, the impact of electronic media in pottery studies will shift from quantitative to qualitative dimensions.23 Whatever the objectives of these projects are, the strategic interrogation of traditional imaging techniques is paramount to understand the potentials and pitfalls of digital media in research and education. Drawing should hold a special place in these impending debates around visual media, not least because its practice makes the relationship between making and knowing more obvious than that of any other method of representation. Its technical simplicity and immediacy turn the person who draws into a producer of knowledge because they have to continually keep in mind that what the object looks like is only part of what it could become in the drawing and what is worth knowing about it. In so doing, drawing prepares its practitioner to become a self-­aware user and creator of digital artefacts, one who is sensitive to the surreptitious power of photorealistic manipulation and has come to recognize that settling disputes around his­tor­ ic­al knowledge can no longer depend on vague expectations of seeing or representing the past ‘as it really was’. This investigation has reinforced the point that Greek vases as cultural goods do not exist as things-­in-­themselves with fixed properties, but instead they   See for instance the absence of Greek vases from the Sketchfab page of the British Museum (https:// sketchfab.com/britishmuseum). For practical advice on 3D scanning of vases, see Bodard 2018 and the 3D Greek Vase Scanning and Printing Project at the University of Virginia: http://archaeology.virginia. edu/3d-­greek-­vases.html. 21   On the ongoing controversy surrounding the illicit release of a 3D model of the Nefertiti bust from the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, see Bishara 2019. 22   This is the case in the University of Oxford’s Beazley Archive Pottery Database: https://www. beazley.ox.ac.uk/carc/pottery. 23   ‘Born-­digital’ designates information that has been recorded digitally from the outset (using, for instance, tablet computers, digital pens, and cameras during field or lab work) rather than digitized afterwards by scanning extant paper plans, drawings, photographs, etc. 20

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emerge from ongoing exchanges between interested viewers and their environments. By the same token, the drawings of vases can be shown to embody a particular set of perceptions but not the objects themselves. By exploring the long-­lived visual history of vases in various types of reproduction, this volume aims to train eyes and minds to grow less susceptible to the temptation of wanting to see the authentic object and instead to enquire about why it was represented, what can be learnt from its reproduction, and how that information was made explicit or obscured. No method of representation has been used in more diverse circumstances and with a greater range of intentions than line-­based drawing. Other media may be superior in mimicking the visible properties of Greek vases, but none is as deceptively close in its technical constitution to the painting on the vase. To draw a vase, therefore, also holds out the tantalizing promise of repeating the work of the vase painter and, hence, of opening a direct connection with the classical past—­a connection that is bound to prove frustrating and incisive in equal measure. Few other images present as rewarding a case for demonstrating how depictions can, on the one hand, fix our idea of the object and determine ways in which it is perceived and, on the other, provide a resource for transforming our awareness.

BI BL IOGR A PH Y B alm , R. 2016. Archaeology’s Visual Culture: Digging and Desire (London: Routledge). B arad , K. 2003. ‘Posthumanist Performativity: Toward an Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter’, Signs 28.3: 801–31. B énézit , E. 1966. Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs (Paris: Librairie Gründ). B ishara , H. 2019. ‘Official 3D Scans of Nefertiti Bust Are Released after Three-Year Battle’, Hyperallergic, 26 November: https://hyperallergic.com/530400/official3d-scans-of-nefertiti-bust-are-released-after-three-year-battle/. B odard , G. 2018. ‘Scanning and Printing a Greek Vase’, ICS Blog, 15 January: https:// ics.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2018/01/15/scanning-and-printing-a-greek-vase/. B ossoli , C. 1856. The Beautiful Scenery and Chief Places of Interest throughout the Crimea (London: Vincent Brooks Day and Son). B redekamp , H., V.  D ünkel , and B.  S chneider . 2015. ‘Diagrammatics’, in The Technical Image: A History of Styles in Scientific Imagery (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press), 152–6. B rudenell , M., and A.  C ooper . 2008. ‘Post-Middenism: Depositional Histories on Later Bronze Age Settlements at Broom, Bedfordshire’, Oxford Journal of Archaeology 27: 15–36. B utler , J. 1989. ‘Foucault and the Paradox of Bodily Inscriptions’, Journal of Philosophy 86.11: 601–7.

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C ain , P. 2010. Drawing: The Enactive Evolution of the Practitioner (Bristol: Intellect). C ollett , L. 2017. Introduction to Drawing Archaeological Pottery (Reading: Chartered Institute for Archaeologists). C ooper , C. 2019. ‘You Can Handle It: 3D Printing for Museums’, Advances in Archaeological Practice 7.4: 443–7. E dgeworth , M. 2012. ‘Follow the Cut, Follow the Rhythm, Follow the Material’, Norwegian Archaeological Review 45.1: 76–92. G arrow , D., E. B eadsmoore , and M. K night . 2005. ‘Pit Clusters and the Temporality of Occupation: An Earlier Neolithic Site at Kilverstone, Thetford, Norfolk’, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 71: 139–57. G arstki , K. 2017. ‘Virtual Representation: The Production of 3D Digital Artifacts’, Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 24.3: 726–50. G arstki , K. 2020. Digital Innovations in European Archaeology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). H odder , I. 1997. ‘Always Momentary, Fluid and Flexible: Towards a Reflexive Excavation Methodology’, Antiquity 71: 691–700. K ästner , U., and D.  S aunders . 2016. Dangerous Perfection: Ancient Funerary Vases from Southern Italy (Los Angeles, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum). L lobera , M. 2011. ‘Archaeological Visualization: Towards an Archaeological Information Science (AISc)’, Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 18.3: 193–223. L ucas , G. 2005. The Archaeology of Time (London: Routledge). M c F adyen , L.  K. 2012. ‘Practice Drawing Writing Object’, in T.  Ingold (ed.), Redrawing Anthropology (London: Ashgate), 33–43. M c F adyen , L. K. 2016. ‘Actions in Time: After the Breakage of Pottery and before the Construction of Walls at the Site of Castelo Velho de Freixo de Numão’, Estudos Do Quaternário 15: 71–90. M olyneaux , B. 1997. The Cultural Life of Images: Visual Representation in Archaeology (London: Routledge). N ylund , S. 2009. ‘Artist or Specialist?’, Archaeology Ireland 23.2: 18–21. O livier , L. 2011. The Dark Abyss of Time: Archaeology and Memory (Lanham, MD: Alta Mira). O lsen , B., M.  S hanks , T.  W ebmoor , and C.  W itmore . 2012. Archaeology: The Discipline of Things (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press). O lson , B., W.  C araher , and S.  H eath . 2015. Visions of Substance: 3D Imaging in Mediterranean Archaeology (Grand Forks, ND: Digital Press). S apirstein , P. 2018. ‘A High-Precision Photogrammetric Recording System for Small Artifacts’, Journal of Cultural Heritage 31: 33–45. S chöne -D enkinger , A. 2007. ‘Reparaturen, antik oder nicht antik? Beobachtungen an rotfigurigen Krateren der Berliner Antikensammlung und Anmerkungen zur Verwendung geflickter Gefäße in der Antike’, in M.  Bentz and U.  Kästner (eds), Konservieren oder Restaurieren: Die Restaurierung griechischer Vasen von der Antike bis heute. Beihefte zum Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Vol. 3 (Munich: Beck), 21–8. S chöne -D enkinger , A. 2020. ‘Überarbeitet—­verändert—­übermalt: Restaurierungen attischer Gefäße der Berliner Antikensammlung im 19. Jh.’, in M.  Langner and

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S. Schmidt (eds), Die Materialität griechischer Vasen: Mikrohistorische Perspektiven in der Vasenforschung. Beihefte zum Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Vol. 9 (Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften), 117–25. S hanks , M., and T.  W ebmoor . 2013. ‘A Political Economy of Visual Media in Archaeology’, in S. Bonde and S. Houston (eds), Re-Presenting the Past: Archaeology through Text and Image (Oxford: Oxbow), 85–108. T ringham , R. 2010. ‘Forgetting and Remembering the Digital Experience and Digital Data’, in D. Borić (ed.), Archaeology and Memory (Oxford: Oxbow), 68–104. V illing , A. 2020. ‘Using Greek Vases: Developing Use-Ware Analysis as an Archaeology of Practice’, in M. Langner and S. Schmidt (eds), Die Materialität griechischer Vasen: Mikrohistorische Perspektiven in der Vasenforschung. Beihefte zum Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Vol. 9 (Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften), 101–15. W itmore , C.  L. 2009. ‘Prolegomena to Open Pasts: On Archaeological Memory Practices’, Archaeologies: Journal of the World Archaeological Congress 5: 511–45.

I NDE X For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–53) may, on occasion, appear on only one of those pages. 3D printing  308–9 Aldis slide projector  228–30 Anderson, Frederick  189, 191–3, 199–201, 206–7, 214, 216–25 archaeology  2, 7–11, 14–15, 24–6, 41–8, 75–7, 90, 94–5, 108–9, 123, 140–2, 144–6, 148–50, 157–8, 161–2, 182–3, 189, 194–209, 226–8, 233–5, 240–1, 243 antiquarianism  1–4, 26–34, 61–4, 67, 75–8, 98–9, 108, 142–3, 147, 154–6, 173–4, 277–9, 301–2, 305 Apelles 144 Apolloni, Girolamo  144–5, 153–6 Apolloni, Quintilio Maria  158–9 archeological illustration, principles of  227–8, 236–7 Beazley Archive  39, 102, 151, 201, 204–5, 228 Beazley, John Davidson  1–3, 14, 39, 42–52, 108–9, 181–2, 187–9, 191–200, 202–9, 215, 220–1, 265, 267, 270, 286 Beldam Painter  30 Belloy, Attico  153–6 Berenson, Bernard  188 Bird, Susan  226–32 Black-figure  30, 42, 124–5, 147–8, 153, 159, 198, 201, 220, 242, 250–1, 253–4, 259, 292–3, 307–9 Bossoli, Carlo  307–8 Braun, Emil  140–1, 144–50, 152–5, 157–8 British Museum  5–7, 14, 28–9, 68–72, 74–5, 85, 101, 114–15, 117–22, 125, 127, 131, 145–6, 168–9, 191–2, 199–200, 206–7, 214–16, 219–23, 227–30, 232–3, 237–9, 241–3, 270, 281 Buck, Adam  219–20

camera lucida  231–2 camera obscura  230–2 Campanari family  142, 144–7, 154 Caylus, Anne-Claude-Philippe de Tubières, Comte de  3–4, 34, 59–60, 67, 78, 99, 101, 143 Chifflet, Jean-Jacques  31 chromolithography  9–11, 123–7, 132–3 Classical reception  1–4, 7–8, 15–16, 144, 301–3, 305 conceptual flattening  132–3 connoisseurship  45–50, 181–2, 187–9, 192–6, 199, 201–2, 207–9, 295 Cook, R. M.  215, 220–1, 232 cyclography  206, 216–17 D’Hancarville  10, 64–6, 73, 114–16, 122–3, 135, 174–6, 231, 252–6, 263–4 Dal Pozzo, Cassiano  3, 27–36, 59, 112–13, 305 Department of Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings  227–8, 233–4 Depoletti, Alessandro  148–56 Depoletti, Francesco  144–5, 148–50, 154, 156 Desmaisons, Ange-Henri-Louis Saint-Ange 158–9 diagrams 302–3 digital drawing  238, 241–3 Drawing  1–5, 9–11, 13–16, 25–40, 42–52, 58–70, 74–8, 86–7, 98–9, 112–17, 120, 123–5, 127–32, 141–2, 144–62, 171–2, 175–6, 179, 181–2, 187–96, 199–209, 214–22, 224–43, 246–57, 259–71, 276–7, 279, 282, 285–6, 296–7, 301, 304–10 drawing tools  14, 25–6, 51, 141, 189–91, 201–2, 228–31, 234, 237–40 Dumont, Albert  197–8

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embodiment  5–14, 26, 41, 48–50, 98–9, 306–7, 309–10 engravings  1–3, 31, 33–9, 42–4, 61–5, 68, 74–5, 84, 86, 101–3, 105–8, 112–20, 125–7, 142–3, 156–61, 174–6, 182, 215, 232–3, 247–9, 252–6, 263–4, 283 Eton Nika Painter  28–9 Flaxman, John  3, 38–9, 69–78, 219–20 fragments  7–8, 24, 49, 87, 148–52, 182, 189, 199–201, 207–9, 232–3, 235, 240–1, 305–6 freehand drawings  14, 24–5, 36, 44–5, 154–6, 189, 202–6, 209, 225 Fröhner, Wilhelm  282 Furtwängler, Adolf  9–11, 44, 167, 170–3, 175–83, 188–90, 192–8, 201–2, 206–8, 251, 262–3 Gandy, Joseph Michael  89–91, 108 Gardner, Ernest  189, 197–9, 206–7 Gardner, Percy  199–201 Genick, Albert  195–6, 198, 231 Gerhard, Eduard  9–11, 41–4, 113–14, 123–32, 134–5, 140–50, 152–5, 157–8, 160–2, 172, 175–6, 179–80, 189–90, 247–9, 251–4, 256–7, 259–60 Gerhard’scher Apparat  141–2, 148–51, 153, 157–9, 251–3, 259–60 Gilliéron, Emile, père  189, 201–2 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von  40 Grant projector  230–1 Greek vase collection  2–9, 27–8, 58–60, 63–6, 75–8, 94–8, 105–9, 112–15, 123, 144–7, 152–8, 168–71, 173–6, 179, 192–4, 199–201, 204–8, 281–4, 286–97 Greek vase display  7–8, 84, 93–8, 108, 260–1, 269–70 Greek vase scholarship / historiography of Greek vases  36, 168, 171 Greek vases and models for artists  2–3, 36, 67, 71–2, 84, 86, 98–9, 101–3, 108–9, 115–16, 143, 304–5 Greek vases and models for craftsmen  5, 7–8 Greek vases and photography  182, 221, 246–71, 276–97, 307–9

Hall, Lindsley  46 Hamilton, William  3, 34–9, 58, 63–4, 68–78, 85–6, 101–3, 108–9, 114–15, 143, 147–8, 168–9, 173–6, 215, 232–3 Harrison, Jane  189, 199–201, 221 Hartwig, Paul  189–94, 199, 206–8 Hauser, Friedrich  188–9, 192–4, 207–8 HMS Colossus  70, 232–3 Hope, Louisa  91–4, 107–8 Hope, Thomas  84–91, 94–109 illustration  4–5, 11–12, 14, 16, 27–40, 58–65, 68–71, 74–7 Institute of Archaeology, University of London 227–8 Klein, Wilhelm  189–91 Lonsdale, Candida  232–3 Marshall, John  288–96 master lines  194–7 Medici, Giacomo  276–7, 288, 295, 297 Meidias Painter  8–10, 167–70, 180–2 Menestrier, Claude  27–8 minor lines  194–7 Montfaucon, Bernard de  34, 61, 72, 98–9, 143 Morelli, Giovanni  188, 202–3 Moses, Henry  105, 219–20 Museum of London  227–8 Neoclassical furniture and interiors  1–2, 5, 84–6, 94–8, 101, 105–9 Neoclassical outline style  4–5, 84, 86, 94, 105, 108 Newton, Charles  281 notebooks  44, 46–7, 78, 202–5 Odessa 307–8 Orsini, Fulvio  29–32 orthographic projection  236–7, 304–5 Painter of New York GR 1000  27–8 Parrhasius 36 Passeri, Giovanni Battista  34–6, 60–3

Index  

Pedretti, Vittore  158–9 Peiresc, Nicolas-Claude Fabri de  3, 27–9, 33–4, 59, 71–2 photogrammetry 308–9 picturesque, the  84, 87–91, 93, 108 Piggott, Stuart  236–7 Pliny the Elder  4–5, 36, 58–9 Polaroid  276–8, 297 pottery handling sessions  v, 13, 99, 133–5, 260–1 Pottier, Edmond  42–4, 201–2 reconstruction drawing  199–201, 235, 240–1 red-figure  3–4, 7, 27–30, 35, 38, 42–4, 46, 49, 58–9, 61–2, 70, 86, 90–4, 101–3, 117–20, 130–2, 142, 145–8, 150–1, 155–60, 171, 189, 218–19, 229–30, 233, 236–7, 248, 261, 264–5, 283–4, 286–8, 290–2, 295–6, 308–9 Reichhold, Karl  9–11, 44–5, 167, 170–3, 176–8, 180–3, 188, 191–9, 201–2, 206–8, 220–1, 262–3, 270 representation  3, 16, 26, 32–3, 48–50, 75–7, 127–9, 144–8, 160–1, 176, 221–2, 246–7, 257, 261–2, 264–5, 270, 279–80, 302–6, 309–10 Richter, Gisela  46 Robert, Carl  167–8, 172, 181–3 Robertson Box  215–16, 224–5 Robertson, C. M.  215–16 Royal Library, Windsor  28–31 Ruspi, Carlo  153–6, 158

315

Schlegel, August Wilhelm  40 Schliemann, Heinrich  199–201, 280–1, 292–3 Shee, Sir Martin Archer  91–4, 108 Smith, Arthur  206–7, 216–17, 222–3 South Italian  3–4, 7–8, 28–9, 68, 95, 168–9 Spode, Josiah II  8–10, 74–6, 78 Talbot, Henry Fox  277–80, 284–6 Tischbein, Johann Heinrich Wilhelm  36, 68–70, 86, 101–3, 108, 143, 219–21, 232–3 tracing  1–2, 14, 25–6, 33–6, 44–51, 58–9, 69–70, 87–9, 143, 146–8, 152–6, 183, 188–9, 206–9, 220–1, 224–5, 228–32, 239–40, 247–9 typology  9–11, 15–16, 156 use wear  15–16, 297, 304–6 Villa Giulia Painter  38 visualization  26, 32–6, 42–4, 52, 240–3, 302–3 Vulci  9–11, 41–2, 142–3, 160, 220 Warren, Edward Perry  289–92 Waterhouse, Charles Oliver  222–7 Wedgewood, Josiah  1–2, 5–9, 57–8, 67, 70–2, 74–5, 78, 108–9, 117–20, 122–3 Wickhoff, Franz  168, 181–3 Winckelmann, Johann Joachim  36, 57–9, 61–70, 74–8, 112, 171 Zeuxis 144