Amasis is an artist of similar calibre and temperament. His style is more individual than that of any B.F. artist, and hence it is possible to attribute to him many vases which he has not signed. It is marked, like that of Exekias, by accuracy of drawing and careful and delicate work in details[[1211]]; but his subjects are more monotonous and his figures much more rigid and conventional. There is much in his vases which suggests a connection with Ionia, especially with the later fabrics discussed above (p. [356]); and this point has been well brought out by Karo.[[1212]] We have seven signed vases from his hand, of which no less than four are jugs of a characteristic form—a form not unknown in Ionic fabrics,[[1213]] but usually found among the later Corinthian wares. It is of the form known as olpe, with the design in a panel, on the right side of the handle only. An example of his work is given in Fig. [97].
FIG. 97. PERSEUS SLAYING MEDUSA: FROM AN OLPE BY AMASIS (BRITISH MUSEUM).
It has been thought by more than one writer that he must have been a foreigner. The name, of course, suggests Egypt, and his Ionic affinities would further suggest Naukratis or Daphnae as his home; but he may well have come from Asia Minor.[[1214]] His best-known work is the fine amphora in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris (222), with a representation of Athena and Poseidon, and among the olpae, one in the British Museum (B 471), with Perseus slaying Medusa (Fig. [97]), and one in the Louvre (F 30), with Herakles’ reception by the Olympian deities.[[1215]]
Of the other artists in this group, Nearchos is only represented by a fragmentary vase from the Athenian Acropolis[[1216]]; Timagoras was the artist of two fine hydriae in the Louvre (F 38–9), one representing Herakles wrestling with the fish-bodied Triton; Tychios has also signed a hydria; Kolchos is only known from one vase, but that a very fine jug with the combat of Herakles and Kyknos (Berlin 1732). The design on the last-named is not, as usual, confined to a panel, but is continued all round the body.
The list of “Kleinmeister,” or minor artists, is a long one,[[1217]] but few individual names are of importance. The most prolific is Tleson, whose name appears on no fewer than forty cups, fourteen of which have no design, but only the signature on either side. Others have a design in the interior only, such as a Sphinx or Siren; others, again, a figure of an animal—a cock, hen, or ram—on either side above the signature. Seventeen are ascribed to Hermogenes, nine with signature only, and thirteen to Xenokles, of which eight have no design. But that Xenokles sometimes had larger aims is shown by two of the cups in the British Museum and the Deepdene collection, as well as by an oinochoe which he made for the painter Kleisophos to decorate. The Museum cup (B 425) has on one side the three cosmic deities Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades; on the other a subject of four figures which may be interpreted as the return of Persephone from Hades. The Deepdene cup[[1218]] has in the interior the procession of the goddesses to the Judgment of Paris, and on the exterior Herakles with Kerberos and Achilles’ pursuit of Troilos. Phrynos, an artist of similar style, has one cup (B.M. B 424) with the Birth of Athena and the reception of Herakles in Olympos, the figures being very diminutive, as are those on the British Museum Xenokles cup. Eucheiros and Sakonides[[1219]] show a preference for a female bust painted in outline on either side of the cup, as does also Hermogenes.[[1220]] Archikles and Glaukytes are associated on a fine cup in Munich (333), which is remarkable for the number of figures each side, the style being very minute and detailed. On one side is Theseus slaying the Minotaur, on the other the hunt of the Calydonian boar, appropriate figures being added each side to fill in the spaces at the ends of the friezes. There are seventeen figures in the first scene, and, exclusive of animals, nine in the latter. A similar cup in the British Museum (B 400), with continuous frieze, representing a battle (twenty fighters, three chariots), is signed by Glaukytes alone. Other names are Anakles, Charitaios, Ergoteles, Epitimos, Myspios, Neandros, Psoieas, Sokles, Sondros, Thrax, and Tlenpolemos.
PLATE XXX
Vases by Nikosthenes (British Museum).