Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-pwrkn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-11T11:13:46.310Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Fool's Gold and Silver: Reflections on the Evidentiary Status of Finely Painted Attic Pottery

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

David M. Pritchard
David M. Pritchard*
Affiliation:
Macquarie University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The imagery of black and red figure pottery continues to be a valuable source of information for the social and ideological history of ancient Athens. These images have traditionally provided historians with insights into material culture, religion and daily life activities, and increasingly, in large part due to francophone archaeologists like François Lissarrague, they are also being employed as detailed evidence of the conceptual world of archaic and classical Athenians. It is striking though that in spite of the clear evidentiary value of finely painted Attic pottery, almost no sustained scholarly attention has been paid to the critical issue of whose lifestyle and ideological point of view were replicated in images by Athenian pottery painters. In light of this lacuna the recent research project of David Gill and Michael Vickers to isolate more exactly the status of red and black figure pots in Attic society would appear to be most promising. Their findings end up challenging two widely held but never fully substantiated articles of faith of classical archaeology, namely that this type of pottery was used extensively and valued highly by the Athenian elite, and that these ‘vases’ were an important and privileged medium for the development of Greek art. Gill and Vickers seek to demonstrate that the homes of upper class Athenians were crammed full of precious metal vessels and had no place for mere painted pots. They maintain instead that such fictile pieces were inexpensive, and slavishly imitated the shapes, colours and even imagery of the vastly more valuable vessels made of gold and silver. Consequently, Gill and Vickers argue that Attic finely painted pottery was entirely dependent on the artistry and inventiveness of the designers and smiths of precious metallic pieces.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 33 , November 1999 , pp. 1 - 27
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 1999

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allison, P. (1999), The Archaeology of Household Activities, London and New York.Google Scholar
Amyx, D.A. (1958), “The Attic Stelai, Part III”, Hesperia 27, 163–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beck, F.A.G. (1964), Greek Education, 450-350 B.C., London.Google Scholar
Bérard, C.et al. (1989), A City of Images—Iconography and Society in Ancient Greece, Princeton.Google Scholar
Bérard, C. (1989), ‘The Order of Women’ in Bérard, et al. (1989) 89–108.Google Scholar
Beard, M. (1991), ‘Adopting an Approach II’ in Rasmussen and Spivey (1991) 12–36.Google Scholar
Blundell, S. (1995), Women in Ancient Greece, London.Google Scholar
Boardman, J. (1996), ‘Crafty Arts’, Classical Review 46, 123–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
den Boer, W. (1979), Private Morality in Greece and Rome—Some Historical Aspects, Leiden.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brijder, H.A.G. (ed.) (1984), Ancient Greek and Related Pottery: Proceedings of the International Vase Symposium in Amsterdam 12-15 April 1984, Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Bugh, G.R. (1988), The Horsemen of Athens, Princeton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, R.M. (1987), ‘“Artful Crafts”: A Commentary’, JHS 107, 169–171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davies, J.K. (1981), Wealth and the Power of Wealth in Classical Athens, New York.Google Scholar
Dickie, M. (1983), ‘Phaeacian Athletes’, in Cairns, F. (ed.), Papers of the Liverpool Latin Seminar 4, Liverpool, 237–276.Google Scholar
Donlan, W. (1980), The Aristocratic Ideal in Ancient Greece, Lawrence.Google Scholar
Dover, K. (1974), Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle, Oxford.Google Scholar
Dover, K. (1989), Greek Homosexuality, London.Google Scholar
Elia, R.J. (1996), Review of Vickers and Gill (1994), AJA 100, 422–423.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geddes, A.G. (1987), ‘Rags and Riches: The Costume of Athenian Men in the Fifth Century’, CQ 37, 307–331.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gill, D.W.J. (1984), ‘The Workshops of the Attic Boisais’ in Brijder, (1984) 102–106.Google Scholar
Gill, D.W.J. (1986), ‘Classical Greek Fictile Imitations of Precious Metal Vases’ in Vickers, (1986a) 9–30.Google Scholar
Gill, D.W.J. (1988), ‘Expressions of Wealth: Greek Art and Society’, Antiquity 62, 735–743.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gill, D.W.J. and Vickers, M. (1990), ‘Reflected Glory: Pottery and Precious Metal in Classical Greece’, JdI 105, 1–30.Google Scholar
Golden, M. (1990), Children and Childhood in Classical Athens, Baltimore and London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldhill, S. (1997), “The Audience of Athenian Tragedy’, in Easterling, P.E. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy, Cambridge, 54–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halperin, D.M. (1990a), ‘Why is Diotima a Woman? Platonic Eros and the Figuration of Gender’ in Halperin, Winkler and Zeitlin, (1990) 257–308.Google Scholar
Halperin, D.M. (1990b), One Hundred Years of Homosexuality, New York.Google Scholar
Halperin, D.M., Winkler, J.J. and Zeitlin, F.I. (eds.) (1990), Before Sexuality—The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World, Princeton.Google Scholar
Heath, M. (1987), Political Comedy in Aristophanes, Göttingen.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoffmann, H. (1988), ‘Why did the Greeks Need Imagery? An Anthropological Approach to the Study of Greek Vase Painting’, Hephaistos 9, 143–162.Google Scholar
Jameson, M. (1994), ‘Class in the Ancient Greek Countryside’, in Doukellis, P.N. and Mendoni, L.G. (eds.), Structures Rurales et Sociétés Antiques: actes du colloque du Corfou, 14-16 mai 1992, Paris, 55–63.Google Scholar
Johnston, A.W. (1979), Trademarks on Greek Vases, Warminster.Google Scholar
Johnston, A.W. (1991), ‘Greek Vases in the Marketplace’ in Rasmussen and Spivey (1991) 202–232.Google Scholar
Jones, J.E., Graham, A.J. and Sackett, L.H. (1973), ‘An Attic Country House below the Cave of Pan at Vari’, ABSA 68, 355–452.Google Scholar
Jones, J.E., Sackett, L.H. and Graham, A.J. (1962), “The Dema House in Attica’, ABSA 57, 75–114.Google Scholar
Jones, J.E. (1975), ‘Town and Country Houses of Attica in Classical Athens’, in Mussche, H. (ed.), Thorikos and Laurion in Archaic and Classical Times, Ghent, 63–140.Google Scholar
Just, R. (1989), Women in Athenian Law and Life, London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kilmer, M. (1997), ‘Painters and Pederasts: Ancient Art, Sexuality, and Social History’, in Golden, M. and Toohey, P. (eds.) Inventing Ancient Culture—Historicism, Periodization and the Ancient World, London, 36–49.Google Scholar
Knigge, U. (1991), The Athenian Kerameikos—History—Monuments—Excavations, Athens.Google Scholar
Krauskopf, I. (1984), ‘Terrakotta-Imitationen der Bronzekannen der Form Beazley VI in Athen, Westgriechenland und Etruria’, in Brijder, (1984) 83–87.Google Scholar
Kurtz, D.C. and Boardman, J. (1971), Greek Burial Customs, London.Google Scholar
Kyle, D.G. (1987), Athletics in Ancient Athens, Leiden.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, D.M. (1986), ‘Temple Inventories in Ancient Greece’, in Vickers, (1986a) 71–81.Google Scholar
Lissarrague, F. (1990a), L'autre guerrier: archers, pellastes, cavaliers dans l'imagerie attique, Paris and Rome.Google Scholar
Lissarrague, F. (1990b), The Aesthetics of the Greek Banquet: Images of Wine and Ritual, Princeton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Markle, M.M. (1985), ‘Jury Pay and Assembly Pay’, in Cartledge, P. and Harvey, D. (eds.), Crax: Essays Presented to G.E.M. de Ste Croix on his 75 Birthday, Exeter, 265–297.Google Scholar
Moore, M. (1997), Attic Red-Figured and White-Ground Pottery, The Athenian Agora XXX, Princeton.Google Scholar
Morris, I. (1992), Death-Ritual and Social Structure, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Morris, I. (1994), ‘Everyman's Grave’, in Boegehold, A.L. and Scafuro, A.C. (eds.), Athenian Identity and Civic Ideology, Baltimore, 67–101.Google Scholar
Murray, O. (1993), Early Greece, London.Google Scholar
Nevett, L.C. (1999), House and Society in the Ancient Greek World, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Ober, J. (1989), Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens: Rhetoric, Ideology and the Power of the People, Princeton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Osborne, R. (1991), ‘Whose Image and Superscription is This?’, Arion 1, 255–275.Google Scholar
Phillips, D.J. (1981), ‘Participation in Athenian Democracy’, Ancient Society: Resources for Teachers 11, 5–48.Google Scholar
Phillips, D.J. (1990), ‘Observations on Some Ostraka from the Athenian Agora’, ZPE 83, 123–148.Google Scholar
Pritchard, D.M. (1996), “Thucydides and the Tradition of the Athenian Funeral Oration’, Ancient History: Resources for Teachers 26, 137–150.Google Scholar
Pritchard, D.M. (1998a), ‘“The Fractured Imaginary”: Popular Thinking on Military Matters In Fifth Century Athens’, Ancient History: Resources for Teachers 28, 38–61.Google Scholar
Pritchard, D.M. (1998b), “The House of Mikion and Menon’, A.A.I.A. Newsletter 12, 12–14.Google Scholar
Randall, R. H. (1953), “The Erechtheum Workmen”, AJA 57, 199–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rasmussen, T. and Spivey, N. (eds.) (1991), Looking at Greek Vases, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Rosivach, V.J. (1991), ‘Some Athenian Presuppositions about “The Poor”’, G&R 38, 189–198.Google Scholar
Sabetai, V. (1997), ‘Aspects of Nuptial and Genre Imagery in Fifth-Century Athens: Issues of Interpretation and Methodology’, in Oakley, J.H., Coulson, W.D.E., Palagia, O. (eds.), Athenian Potters and Painters: The Conference Proceedings, Oxford, 319–335.Google Scholar
de Ste Croix, G.E.M. (1972), The Origins of the Peloponnesian War, London.Google Scholar
Schnapp, A. (1989), ‘Eros the Hunter’ in Bérard, et al. (1989) 71–88.Google Scholar
Shanks, M. (1996), Classical Archaeology of Greece: Experiences of a Discipline, London.Google Scholar
Shear, T.L. Jr. (1969), ‘The Athenian Agora: Excavations of 1968’, Hesperia 38, 382–417.Google Scholar
Snodgrass, A. (1980), Archaic Greece: The Age of Experiment, Berkeley and Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Sparkes, B.A. (1991), Greek Pottery: an Introduction (Manchester 1991).Google Scholar
Sparkes, B.A. (1995), ‘Sparkling Stuff?’, Antiquity 69, 619–621.Google Scholar
Sparkes, B.A. (1996), The Red and the Black: Studies in Greek Pottery, London.Google Scholar
Spence, I.G. (1993), The Cavalry of Classical Greece: A Social and Military History with Particular Reference to Athens, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spivey, N. (1991), ‘Greek vases in Etruria’, in Rasmussen and Spivey (1991) 131–150.Google Scholar
Strauss, B.S. (1996), ‘The Athenian Trireme, School of Democracy’, in Ober, J. and Hedrick, C. (eds.), Demokratia—A Conversation on Democracies. Ancient and Modern, Princeton, 313–325.Google Scholar
Thompson, D.B. (1954), “Three Centuries of Hellenistic Terracottas, I, B and C’, Hesperia 23, 72–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, H.A. (1954), ‘Excavations in the Athenian Agora: 1953’, Hesperia 23, 31–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, H.A. (1959), ‘Activities in the Athenian Agora: 1958’, Hesperia 28, 91–108CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, H.A. and Wycherley, R.E. (1972), The Agora of Athens, The Athenian Agora XIV, Princeton.Google Scholar
Todd, S.C. (1990), Lady Chatterley's Lover and the Attic Orators: The Social Composition of the Athenian Jury’, JHS 110, 146–173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tunks, B. (1996), ‘An Examination of Attitudes Towards Pathic Behaviour in Male-Male Relations in Ancient Athens’, Stele: A Student Journal of Antiquity 2, 9–16.Google Scholar
Vartsos, J.A. (1978), ‘Class Divisions in Fifth-Century Athens’, Platon 30, 226–244.Google Scholar
Vernant, (1983), ‘Some Psychological Aspects of Work in Ancient Greece’, in Myth and Thought Among the Greeks, London, 248–270.Google Scholar
Vickers, M. (1978), Greek Symposia, London.Google Scholar
Vickers, M. (1985), ‘Artful Crafts: The Influence of Metalwork on Athenian Painted Pottery’, JHS 105, 108–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vickers, M. (1986a) (ed.), Pots and Pans: Proceedings of the Colloquium on Precious Metal and Ceramics in the Muslim, Chinese and Graeco-Roman Worlds, Oxford.Google Scholar
Vickers, M. (1986b), ‘Silver, Copper and Ceramics in Ancient Athens’ in Vickers, (1986a) 137–151.Google Scholar
Vickers, M. and Gill, D. (1994), Artful Crafts: Ancient Greek Silverware and Pottery, Oxford.Google Scholar
Walker, S. (1983), ‘Women and Housing in Classical Greece: The Archaeological Evidence’, in Cameron, A. and Kuhrt, A. (eds.), Images of Women in Antiquity, Detroit, 81–92.Google Scholar
Winkler, J.J. (1990), ‘Laying Down the Law: The Oversight of Men's Sexual Behavior in Classical Athens’ in Halperin, D., Winkler, J.J. and Zeitlin, F. (1990) 171–210.Google Scholar
Young, R.S. (1951), ‘An Industrial District of Ancient Athens’, Hesperia 20, 135–288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar