Group of negro alabastras
London, British Museum
Paris, Louvre
Gruppe der Neger-Alabastra (English Group of the Negro Alabastra ) is the emergency name of a group of Attic vase painters . The group painted around 490/470 BC. Numerous between 14 and 17 cm high alabastra in red-figure - white-ground style, on which dark-skinned fighters ("negroes") are depicted. The group is counted to the Syriskos group and is dependent on the Syriskos painter , related Alabastra belong to the group of the painter of New York 21,131 .
The vases were almost exclusively painted in one figure, the A-side of the alabastra is completely occupied by the figure, only one copy shows two figures. The surrounding image zone takes up about ⅔ the height of the vessel; it is bordered at the top and bottom by ornamental bands or shiny strips. The white coating covers the body of the vase except for the neck, the mouth and the bottom. The paintings are carried out using the so-called semi-outline technique: the body was painted as a silhouette, but the hair, clothing and objects as an outline drawing.
The A-sides of the vases show dark-skinned fighters who are interpreted as Ethiopians who are dressed in trousers and robes. They wear either a loincloth or a short chiton with light armor over it and occasionally a scarf. As attributes that distinguish them as fighters, they carry Pelte , bow , Gorytos or ax with him. As much as the representations are similar at first glance, you can see variations in each individual representation. Individual vases show a different pictorial program, for example a Greek-armored Ethiopian with a round shield and spear, a fighter who is shown standing at an altar with a panther, or a naked figure with a shield and rhyton in his hands. On the B-side, a palm tree and a stool ( diphros ) are usually shown.
literature
- John D. Beazley : Attic Red-figure Vase-painters , 2nd edition. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1963, pp. 267-269.
- Jenifer Neils: The Group of the Negro Alabastra. A Study in Motif Transferal . In: Antike Kunst 23, 1980, pp. 13–23.
- Irma Wehgartner : Attic white-ground ceramics. Painting techniques, workshops, forms, use (= ceramic research , volume 5). Zabern, Mainz 1983, ISBN 3-8053-0565-6 , p. 118.
- Jenifer Neils: The Group of the Negro Alabastra Reconsidered . In: Filippo Giudice, Rosalba Panvini (eds.): Il greco, il barbaro e la ceramica attica . Vol. 4. L'Erma di Bretschneider, Rome 2007, ISBN 978-88-8265-445-0 , pp. 67-74.
Web links
- Group of Negro Alabastras at the British Museum