The Antiphon Painter, a pupil of the cup painter Onesimos, began working for the great painter-potter Euphronios shortly after 500 B.C. His favorite subjects are party-goers and athletes.
Douris was one of the painters whom Euphronios brought to his workshop when he shifted from painting to potting. Douris soon became a partner of the potter Python, painting genre scenes of symposiasts, athletes and youths, as well as grand treatments of mythological stories.
Euphronios trained under Psiax, one of the most delicate artists in late-sixth-century B.C. Athens. In his later years he turned to potting rather than painting—perhaps due to failing eyesight—and specialized in making signed cups for the most talented painters in Athens.
The Foundry Painter is named after a detailed representation of sculptors working on a bronze statue painted on a red-figure cup now in Berlin’s Staatliche Museen. From about 480 to 460 B.C., he painted cups with naturalistic depictions of athletes and symposiasts. His paintings of mythic scenes included memorable images of battling centaurs.
The Hegesiboulos Painter, active around 500 B.C., is named for the potter “Hegesiboulos,” who signed a cup he made (now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York) depicting an elderly gentleman walking his dog.
The Pedieus Painter, named after inscriptions praising one Pedieus as beautiful, painted cups during the last years of the sixth century B.C. Some scholars believe that the cups by the Pedieus Painter are in fact late work by the cup painter Skythes (the Scythian).
Smikros (Little Man) was a member of a pioneering group of late-sixth-century B.C. painters who developed the art of red-figure painting to such an extent that by 500 B.C. the earlier black-figure style had been eclipsed. Smikros was much influenced by the great painter-potter Euphronios.
The Tarquinia Painter was active around 460 B.C., painting drinking vessels and large jugs. He painted scenes of youths, athletes and symposiasts.
The Triptolemos Painter began working on cups, some of them potted by Euphronios. Unlike his contemporary Douris, he seems to have developed no enduring partnership with any particular potter, working instead with several, from about 490 to 470 B.C.
—Jasper Gaunt, curator of Greek and Roman art at the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia
