Baltimore, Hopkins 9022
Lekythos in Six Technique
ca. 500 B.C.
9022. Ht, 18.9 cm; diam mouth, 4 cm; diam foot, 5 cm. Mended from
many pieces, with parts of handle and rim restored.
Rim and inside of neck glazed. Glazed handle, with underside
reserved. On shoulder is chain of lotus buds, with stalks linking every three
buds; band of tongues above.
Body:
Satyr strides in right profile, left leg advanced. Right outstretched
hand grasps right wrist of a maenad, while left arm is outstretched toward her
genitals. Maenad advances in left profile, left leg advanced and both arms
outstretched. Contour and interior markings of satyr incised. Delicate incisions
for maenad's eye, brow, hairline, arms, back left leg, and back of right thigh.
Interior of maenad was painted white.
Two red lines above scene; one red line beneath figures as
groundline. Foot in two degrees, glazed except for reserved side of top step and
underside.
In Six technique the background is in black glaze, like the
background in red-figure vasepainting, but the artist works the figures either
by incising their contours through the black glaze or by applying white, red, or
brown paint on top of the glaze before the vase is fired.
1 The painter may, as in the case with our maenad, render a figure
entirely or mostly in color, using incision only for details. Alternately, he
may work a figure like our satyr in "outline Six," wherein all of the figure is
incised and no color is added.
2
The Six technique originated during the first half of the sixth
century, but at first was employed only for parts of figures. Not until around
530 B.C., in the experimental atmosphere that stimulated the introduction of
red-figure vasepainting, did Nikosthenes and Psiax first work entire vases in
Six technique.
3 In the later sixth century the technique was most popular in the
workshops of the Sappho
4 and Diosphos Painters,
5 artists who were influenced, and perhaps trained, by the Edinburgh
Painter. The Sappho and Diosphos Painters were primarily black-figure artists
who painted a variety of shapes but specialized in lekythoi, which they executed
in Six technique as well as in black-figure and white-ground. The Diosphos
Painter is credited with over thirty-six lekythoi; the Sappho Painter is
assigned only eleven lekythoi and one hydria.
Our vase is best paralleled by work of the Sappho Painter. Although
both the Sappho and the Diosphos Painters used lekythoi of the DL type, those of
the Sappho Painter have the shallow mouths and squat, full bodies with tapering
profiles of the Hopkins vase, in contrast to the deeper mouths and
straight-sided cylinders preferred by the Diosphos Painter.
6 The stalks in the bud patterns of the Sappho Painter generally skip two
buds, as on our example, while those of the Diosphos Painter usually skip only
one, but occasionally two,
and sometimes add white dots between the buds.
7 The Six lekythoi of both painters have a red line beneath the scene, but
the Sappho Painter almost always applies two red lines above, as on our vessel,
while the Diosphos Painter may employ a checker or key pattern.
8 While the Diosphos Painter often relies upon incision alone, the Sappho
Painter also executes elements of his representation in added white.
9 Our vase is especially similar to a lekythos by the Sappho Painter in
New York on which a satyr, worked entirely by incision, crouches amid an
amphora, serpent, and rocks, all of which are rendered in white.
10
On the Hopkins vase the incisions for the maenad are so much lighter
and more delicate than those for the satyr that they could not have been
intended to be seen through the white paint and thus must be preliminary
incisions intended as guidelines for the artist. On this lekythos the artist
carefully respected these sketches in his final application of color, but on
other Six vases the preliminary incisions are often disregarded.
11
The Sappho Painter used Six technique early in his career, and
certainly the heavy thighs and strict profile of the satyr support a date for
our vase of ca. 500 B.C.
