Sokles was an ancient Greek potter, active in the middle of the 6th century BC, in
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
.
The following signed
Little-master cups
Little-master cups are a type of Attic black-figure cups, produced around the middle and third quarter of the sixth century BC. Their name is based on their fine small-format decoration.
Little-master cups are later in origin than Siana cups, bu ...
or fragments thereof are known, all of them painted by the
Sokles Painter:
*Berlin, Antikensammlung F 1781
*Bolligen, Collection Rolf Blatter
*
Daskyleion, Excavation E 108.107
*Madrid, Museo Arqueologico Nacional 10947 (L 56)
*Malibu (CA), J. Paul Getty Museum 86.AE.158
*Oxford, Ashmolean Museum 1929.498
*Switzerland, private collection
*Taranto, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 20910
He belongs to the group of so-called
Little masters
The Little Masters ("Kleinmeister" in German), were a group of German printmakers who worked in the first half of the 16th century, primarily in engraving. They specialized in very small finely detailed prints, some no larger than a postage stamp. ...
.
A
red-figure
Red-figure vase painting is one of the most important styles of figural Greek vase painting.
It developed in Athens around 520 BCE and remained in use until the late 3rd century BCE. It replaced the previously dominant style of black-figure va ...
plate in Paris,
Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
CA 2181, painted in style similar to that of the painter Paseas, is signed by a potter named Soklees. Whether that craftsman is identical with the
black-figure
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 ...
potter Sokles remains unclear. The signature may also not be authentic.
Bibliography
*
John Beazley
Sir John Davidson Beazley, (; 13 September 1885 – 6 May 1970) was a British classical archaeologist and art historian, known for his classification of Attic vases by artistic style. He was Professor of Classical Archaeology and Art at the Un ...
: ''Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters'', Oxford 1956, p. 172.
*John Beazley: ''Attic Red-figure Vase-painters'', 2nd ed. Oxford 1963, p. 164.
*John Beazley: ''Paralipomena. Additions to Attic black-figure vase-painters and to Attic red-figure vase-painters'', Oxford 1971, p. 72.
*Kutalmış Görkay: "Attic Black-Figure Pottery from Daskyleion'', in: Studien zum antiken Kleinasien IV, Asia Minor Studien 34, Bonn 1999, Pl. 5, 47.
*Rolf Blatter: ''Sokles'', in: Künstlerlexikon der Antike Vol. 2, 2004, p. 404.
Ancient Greek potters
{{AncientGreece-bio-stub