Attic red-figure
Andokides Painter bilingual amphora
Museum: Boston, Museum of Fine Arts
Size: 53.3cm (amphora, Type A)
Function: storage and display
Technique: red-figure (no relief lines, dilute brown lines or washes; much patterning and some incision, as in black-figure)
Style: earliest 'primitive'
Subject/s: A. Herakles drives a bull to scarifice. See preceding for B.
Date: later 6th c.
Analysis: when the vase was made the red-figure technique has just been developed. Here we see the primitive beginnings, with incision and many patterns as in the earlier black-figure manner. The point of juxtaposing the old and new technique on a single large and well made vase could have been commercial – to demonstrate that the workshop that made it can offer both techniques. Close inspection of draughtsmanship may suggest that the black-figure painter (conventionally known as the Lysippides Painter) is not the same as the Andokides Painter.
