(3) Both the glaze and the accessory colors were applied when the vases were in leather-hard condition, before any firing. Instead of the two, three, or four firings often assumed by archaeologists, the evidence points to only one fire, after total completion of the vase.
(4) The great majority of Athenian vases were made for actual use, not for votive, decorative, or funeral purposes, as is still often assumed.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Reichhold’s theory in his Skizzenbuch griechischer Meister (1919), p. 12, that the word ἐποίησεν (“made it”) in a signature refers to the draughtsman of the sketch for the decoration, while its executor signed ἔγραψεν (“painted it”), since the actual making of the vase “required no artistic skill and could be left to every apprentice,” only shows his exclusive preoccupation with the drawings on the vases, in the copying of which he so much excelled.
[2] For any one who wishes to study this subject at greater length, Charles F. Binns’s work on the Potter’s Craft is strongly recommended (second edition, 1922).
[3] Figs. [1], [2], [6-13], [14], [21-23], [27], [39], [41].
[4] Figs. [3], [4], [35], [36], [40], [42], [50], [51], [52].
[5] In commercial potteries where a larger output and coarser wares are produced wedging en gros becomes necessary. In modern Greece it is done by treading the clay with bare feet.
[6] Sometimes a wooden scraper is held on the outside to obtain a smoother surface; especially in cases when the later process of turning is dispensed with.