| Fig. 19.—Enamelled pottery from tombs in Rhodes, made under Egyptian influence. |
In a subsequent period (8th-7th century b.c.) Egyptian objects in faience became a common import into Greek cities, such as those of Rhodes, and to a less degree in Sardinia and southern Italy, through the commercial medium of the Phoenicians. Flasks of faience occur in the Polledrara tomb at Vulci (610-600 b.c.) and similar vases with a pale green glaze at Tharros in Sardinia in tombs of the same date. In Rhodes, small flasks and jars are found ornamented with friezes of men and animals in relief, or imitating in colour and design the glass vessels of the Phoenicians. It also seems probable that the Greeks of Rhodes and other centres attempted the imitation of this ware (see fig. 19), for we find faience aryballi or globular oil-flasks modelled in the form of helmeted heads or animals, which are purely Greek in style.
In the Hellenistic period the fashion was revived at Alexandria, and under the Ptolemies large jugs of blue-enamelled faience with figures in relief and bearing the names of reigning sovereigns were made and exported to the Cyrenaica and to southern Italy. Two of these are in the British Museum (Egyptian department). The same collection includes a very beautiful glazed vase in the form of Eros riding on a duck, found in a tomb at Tanagra, but undoubtedly of Alexandrine make, and a head of a Ptolemaic queen, with a surface of bright blue glaze.
Subsequently in the 1st century b.c., this so-called porcelain ware was replaced by a variety of ware characterized by a brilliantly coloured glaze coating, in which the presence of lead is often indicated. This ware was principally made at three centres; at Tarsus in Asia Minor, at Alexandria and at Lezoux in central Gaul. But it was probably also made in western Asia Minor and in Italy. It is not confined to vases, being also employed for lamps and small figures; the vases are usually of small size, in shapes imitated from metal (Plate II., fig. 59). The colour of the glaze varies from a deep green to bright yellow, and the inside of a vessel is often of a different tint from the exterior. Many of these vases are decorated with figures or designs in relief, others are quite plain. The colours of these glazes are of course due to the addition of oxide of copper and oxide of iron to a lead glaze, and they are strictly analogous to the green and yellow glazes of medieval Europe.[7]
Historical Account of Greek Vase-painting.—It has been indicated in the section dealing with technical processes that Greek vases may be classified under four headings according to the character of the decoration, and this classification may with a slight modification be adopted as a chronological one, the history of the art falling under four main heads, under which it will be convenient to describe its development from the earliest specimens of painted pottery down to the period when it was finally replaced by other methods of decoration.
These four classes and their main characteristics may be summarized as follows:—
I. Vases of the Primitive Period from about 2500 or 2000 to 600 b.c., including both the Cretan-Mycenaean epoch and the early ages of historical Greece. In the former the pottery is either decorated in polychrome on a shining black ground or conversely in shining black on a buff ground; in the latter, the decoration is in brown or black (usually dull, not shiny) on an unglazed ground varying from white to pale red. In the former again the decoration is marked by its naturalistic treatment of plant and animal forms; in the latter the ornaments are chiefly linear, floral or figures of animals; human figures and mythological scenes being very rare.
II. Black-figured Vases from about 600-500 b.c.; figures painted in shining black on a glossy ground varying from cream colour to bright orange red, with engraved lines and white and purple for details; subjects mainly from mythology and legend.
| Annual of the British School at Athens. Fig. 20.—Minoan or “Kamares” ware, from Crete. |
| Fig. 21.—Primitive black pottery from the Troad. |
III. Red-figured Vases, from 520 to 400 b.c.; figures drawn in outline on red clay and the background wholly filled in with shining black, inner details indicated by painted lines or dashes of purple and white, scenes from daily life or mythology. With these are included the vases with polychrome figures on white ground. In these, which are exclusively made at Athens, the perfection of vase-painting is reached between 480 and 450 b.c.