Terracotta aryballos (oil flask) MET DP218738

Nearchos (

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

: Νέαρχος) was an

Attic An attic (sometimes referred to as a ''loft'') is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building; an attic may also be called a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because attics fill the space between the ceiling of the ...

potter and vase painter of the

black figure style 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 ...

, active 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 a ...

c. 570 to 555 BC. In some stylistic terms, particularly his fine drawings, Nearchos seems closely connected to the

Painter of Acropolis 606 The Painter of Acropolis 606 (sometimes Painter of Athens 606) was a black-figure vase painter, active around 570–560 BC. His name vase is a ''dinos'' discovered on the Athenian Acropolis and now on display in the National Museum at Athens (inv ...

. Unlike his contemporaries, he achieved figures with a striking sense of dignity, comparable to those painted much later by

Exekias Exekias ( grc, Ἐξηκίας, ''Exēkías'') was an ancient Greek vase painter and potter who was active in Athens between roughly 545 BC and 530 BC. Exekias worked mainly in the black-figure technique, which involved the painting of sce ...

. Especially striking is a ''

kantharos A ''kantharos'' ( grc, κάνθαρος) or cantharus is a type of ancient Greek cup used for drinking. Although almost all surviving examples are in Greek pottery, the shape, like many Greek vessel types, probably originates in metalwork. In i ...

'', probably both shaped and painted by Nearchos, which depicts

Achilles In Greek mythology, Achilles ( ) or Achilleus ( grc-gre, Ἀχιλλεύς) was a hero of the Trojan War, the greatest of all the Greek warriors, and the central character of Homer's '' Iliad''. He was the son of the Nereid Thetis and Pe ...

harnessing his horses. ''Kantharoi'' were one of his favourite shapes, and he signed them as both potter and painter. He also introduced some innovations, such as the attempt to render a horse's body in white paint. Not all his experiments can be considered successful. A further vessel that exemplifies his artistic mastery is an ''

aryballos An aryballos ( Greek: ἀρύβαλλος; plural aryballoi) was a small spherical or globular flask with a narrow neck used in Ancient Greece."aryballos" in ''The New Encyclopædia Britannica''. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 15th edn., ...

'' in the Corinthian style, decorated with a frieze of pygmies and

cranes Crane or cranes may refer to: Common meanings * Crane (bird), a large, long-necked bird * Crane (machine), industrial machinery for lifting ** Crane (rail), a crane suited for use on railroads People and fictional characters * Crane (surname ...

along the rim. Strikingly, the vessel is less than 8 cm tall and the frieze only covers a fraction of its surface. Nerachos also produced

Little-master cup 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 ...

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-Painting'', Oxford 1956, p. 82-83. *John D. Beazley: ''Paralipomena. Additions to Attic black-figure vase-painters and to Attic red-figure vase-painters'', Oxford 1971, p. 30-31. *Bettina Kreuzer: ''Nearchos (I)'', in: Künstlerlexikon der Antike II, 2004, p. 113-114.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nearchos Ancient Greek vase painters Artists of ancient Attica 6th-century BC Athenians