Nikosthenic Amphora
   HOME
*





Nikosthenic Amphora
A Nikosthenic amphora is a type of Attic vase invented in the late 6th century BC by the potter Nikosthenes, aimed specifically for export to Etruria. Inspired by Etruscan Bucchero types, it is the characteristic product of the Nikosthenes-Pamphaios workshop. Characteristic features are the angular body of the amphora and the broad flat handles. The Etruscan predecessors were black-painted, whereas the Attic vases were decorated in the black-figure style. Nearly all know examples were found in Caere, while the majority of Nikosthenes products in other shapes were discovered in Vulci. This suggests that the type was specifically made for sale in or to Caere, which indicates that Nikosthenes must have been a gifted salesman and that an efficient system of intermediate traders must have existed. Niksothenes created or introduced several vase shapes, but the Nikosthenic amphora is his most famous innovation. The clay of the Nikosthenic amphorae is bright orange-red, and thus provi ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Attica
Attica ( el, Αττική, Ancient Greek ''Attikḗ'' or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the city of Athens, the capital of Greece and its countryside. It is a peninsula projecting into the Aegean Sea, bordering on Boeotia to the north and Megaris to the west. The southern tip of the peninsula, known as Laurion, was an important mining region. The history of Attica is tightly linked with that of Athens, and specifically the Golden Age of Athens during the classical period. Ancient Attica ( Athens city-state) was divided into demoi or municipalities from the reform of Cleisthenes in 508/7 BC, grouped into three zones: urban (''astu'') in the region of Athens main city and Piraeus (port of Athens), coastal (''paralia'') along the coastline and inland (''mesogeia'') in the interior. The modern administrative region of Attica is more extensive than the historical region and includes Megaris as part of the regional unit West Attica, ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Nikosthenes
Nikosthenes was a potter of Greek black- and red-figure pottery in the time window 550–510 BC. He signed as the potter on over 120 black-figure vases, but only nine red-figure. Most of his vases were painted by someone else, called Painter N (for Nikosthenes). Beazley considers the painting "slovenly and dissolute;" that is, not of high quality. In addition, he is thought to have worked with the painters Anakles, Oltos, Lydos and Epiktetos. Six's technique is believed to have been invented in Nikosthenes' workshop, possibly by Nikosthenes himself, around 530 BC. He is considered transitional between black-figure and red-figure pottery. The pottery workshop Nikosthenes was the owner of a workshop in Athens in the latter part of the 6th century BC. On the theory that the number of signed works reflects the number of total works, the high number of signatures referring to Nikosthenes suggests that he had one of the largest if not the largest manufacturing center in Athens. He ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Etruria
Etruria () was a region of Central Italy, located in an area that covered part of what are now most of Tuscany, northern Lazio, and northern and western Umbria. Etruscan Etruria The ancient people of Etruria are identified as Etruscan civilization, Etruscans. Their complex Etruscan civilization, culture centered on numerous city-states that arose during the Villanovan period in the ninth century BCE, and they were very powerful during the Orientalizing Archaic period in Greece, Archaic periods. The Etruscans were a dominant culture in Italy by 650 BCE,Rix, Helmut. "Etruscan." In ''The Ancient Languages of Europe,'' ed. Roger D. Woodard. Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp. 141–164. surpassing other ancient Italic peoples such as the Ligures. Their influence may be seen beyond Etruria's confines in the Po River Valley and Latium, as well as in Campania and through their contact with the Magna Graecia, Greek colonies in Southern Italy (including Sicily). Indeed, at some Etrusc ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Bucchero
Bucchero () is a class of ceramics produced in central Italy by the region's pre-Roman Etruscan population. This Italian word is derived from the Latin ''poculum'', a drinking-vessel, perhaps through the Spanish ''búcaro'', or the Portuguese ''púcaro''.Nicola Zingarelli, Vocabolario della Lingua Italiana, 2011. The Spanish word ''búcaro'' also means an odorous kind of clay formerly chewed by women, and from which those vessels were made. (María Moliner, Diccionario del uso del Español, 2007). Regarded as the "national" pottery of ancient Etruria, bucchero ware is distinguished by its black fabric as well as glossy, black surface achieved through the unique " reduction" method in which it was fired. After the leather-hard unfired ware was arranged in the kiln and the fire started, the vent holes were closed, thus reducing the supply of oxygen required in a normal kiln firing. In the smoke-filled atmosphere of the kiln, the oxygen-starved flames drew oxygen molecules from the ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Black-figure Vase Painting
Black-figure pottery painting, also known as the black-figure style or black-figure ceramic ( grc, , }), is one of the styles of painting on antique Greek vases. It was especially common between the 7th and 5th centuries BCE, although there are specimens dating as late as the 2nd century BCE. Stylistically it can be distinguished from the preceding orientalizing period and the subsequent red-figure pottery style. Figures and ornaments were painted on the body of the vessel using shapes and colors reminiscent of silhouettes. Delicate contours were incised into the paint before firing, and details could be reinforced and highlighted with opaque colors, usually white and red. The principal centers for this style were initially the commercial hub Corinth, and later Athens. Other important production sites are known to have been in Laconia, Boeotia, eastern Greece, and Italy. Particularly in Italy individual styles developed which were at least in part intended for the Etruscan ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Caere
: Caere (also Caisra and Cisra) is the Latin name given by the Romans to one of the larger cities of southern Etruria, the modern Cerveteri, approximately 50–60 kilometres north-northwest of Rome. To the Etruscans it was known as Cisra, to the Greeks as Agylla and to the Phoenicians as Kyšryʼ. Caere was one of the most important and populous Etruscan city-states, in area 15 times larger than today's town, and only Tarquinia was equal in power at its height around 600 BC. Caere was also one of the cities of the Etruscan League. Its sea port and monumental sanctuary at Pyrgi was important for overseas trade. Today, the area of Cerveteri is best known for its Etruscan necropolis and archaeological treasures. Geography The ancient city was situated on a hill about 7 km from the sea, a location which made it a wealthy trading town derived originally from the iron ore mines in the Tolfa hills. It had three sea ports including Pyrgi and Punicum. It was bounded by the two ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Vulci
Vulci or Volci (Etruscan language, Etruscan: ''Velch'' or ''Velx'', depending on the romanization used) was a rich Etruscan civilization, Etruscan city in what is now northern Lazio, central Italy. As George Dennis (explorer), George Dennis wrote, "Vulci is a city whose very name... was scarcely remembered, but which now, for the enormous treasures of antiquity it has yielded, is exalted above every other city of the ancient world." Vulci was located near the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea about 80 km northwest of Rome, on the Fiora River, between Montalto di Castro and Canino. Remains of the city can be seen today. The Vulci, like other Etruscans, became master sculptors in bronze as acknowledged by ancient writers. Although most large bronzes have been lost, there remain some magnificent examples of Etruscan bronze work such as the Chimera of Arezzo and the Monteleone chariot, possibly made in Vulci. In the 19th century thousands of the ancient tombs of Vulci were discovere ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

N Painter
The N Painter was an Attic black-figure vase painter of the third quarter of the 6th century BC. His real name remains unknown. The N Painter was named after the potter Nikosthenes, as he worked in the latter's workshop and was his most important collaborator. Modern scholarship assumes that N Painter painted all known Nikosthenic amphorae. He also decorated several '' kyathoi'', cups and a ''psykter A psykter (in Greek ψυκτήρ "cooler") is a type of Greek vase that is characterized by a bulbous body set on a high, narrow foot. It was used as a wine cooler, and specifically as part of the elite sympotic set in the ancient Greek symposium. ...''. Some scholars suggest that N Painter and the potter Nikosthenes may be identical. The vases painted by N Painter are mostly dated to the 530s and 520 BC. Especially his larger figures are of considerable quality, while John Boardman condemns his smaller works as simply boring and sometimes sloppy, not very different from mass-produ ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Pamphaios
Pamphaios was an Attic potter active around the end of the 6th century BC. Pamphaios was the successor of Nikosthenes in that artist's workshop, and thus took over from one of the most influential and creative potters of antiquity. He probably took over the workshop before 510 BC and continued the tradition of his predecessor by producing typical shapes the latter had developed, such as the Nikosthenic amphora, the Nikosthenic pyxis or the Chalkidian style cup. At times, he developed these shapes further. Unlike Nikostehenes, Pamphaios favoured painters of the red-figure style, which was at the time replacing the previously dominant technique of black-figure vase painting. He also continued to employ many of the painters that had worked for Nikosthenes, such as Oltos, Epiktetos and the Nikosthenes Painter. Pamphaios signature survives on more than fifty vases – spelled different ways by various artists, it probably functioned as a trademark on his workshop's products. File:At ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]