- chapter 48: Foreign artists in Etruria –
use the typically East Greek outline technique (see Fig. 52.9), and the Swallows Painter
came to paint aryballoi and olpai, Corinthian forms, with typically Corinthian dot-
rosettes as fi ll ornaments. The Bearded Sphinx Painter was very prolifi c and founded a
school, beginning the Etrusco-Corinthian tradition that would survive into the middle
decades of the sixth century bc. The Swallows Painter had no followers.
From the beginning of the sixth century bc, Attic vases began to arrive in Etruria
in large quantity and/or high quality, and, along with the East Greek wares, edged out
Corinthian products. They were destined always for the symposium or as part of a person’s
toilette. Their movement is now in the hands of East Greek merchants and, near the end
of the century, of Aeginetans: one recalls the comments of Herodotus (1.163.1–4) on the
Phokeians who had discovered – for commercial benefi t – the Adriatic, as well as Etruria,
Iberia and Tartessos, or of Herodotus’ remarks (4.152.3) on the Aeginetan Sostratos,
the merchant with whom no one could compete. This mixture of products appears in
the great emporium sanctuaries, the most famous of which are in the ports of Pyrgi and
Gravisca. Greek iconography, myth, and the style of Archaic Greek art are increasingly
present in the fi gural art of Etruria. The presence of Greek masters may be assigned to
the second half of the century, especially after the Persian conquest of Asia Minor (546
bc), when a large portion of the Greek residents of this region evaded the Persian yoke
and abandoned their homeland: suffi ce it to recall the fl ood of Phocians who arrived at
Alalia in Corsica (Herodotus 1.165), where about 20 years earlier a sub-colony of Phocian
Marseille had been founded.
Artists also took part in this infl ux of migrants, and settled in Etruria. Many hypotheses
have been put forward for this. These artists from various countries of the Aegean coast
of Asia Minor introduced diverse stylistic traditions and to the same artists are attributed
the paintings of several tombs at Tarquinia of the last decades of the sixth century bc, for
instance the Tombs of the Augurs, Acrobats, Olympic Games, Inscriptions, Bacchants,
Baron (Cristofani 1976): the style is East Greek, the decorative repertoire is adapted to
local commissions. The so-called Pontic vases are also probably by East Greek painters,
active at Vulci in the third quarter of the sixth century bc, like the Paris or Amphiaraos
Painters (Hannestad 1974; Hannestad 1976). Surely the East Greek artists are the
painters of the Campana dinoi (see Martelli 1978, pp. 192–193, with bibliography) and
of the Caeretan hydriae, who worked in Caere in the second half of the century. These
hydriai have a metallic profi le that distinguishes them from other versions of this shape.
The style and the insistence on Greek myth, with some fi gures, seen on an example
in the Louvre, labeled with Greek names (Odios, Aias, Nestōr), alphabet and language
(Hemelrijk 1984, pp. 46–47, tavv. 107–108), indicate a workshop founded and run by
Greek masters. To the second half of the sixth century bc are dated some architectural
terracottas still from Caere – acroteria with Herakles and Athena, antefi xes, raking simas
and terminal tiles – which in the type and decoration (broken meander, birds, fl owers,
tongues) are paralleled in the East Greek repertoire: the current notion is that they are
the work of local workshops, formed by immigrant Greek masters (Andrén, 1939–1940,
pp. CXLVII–CXLIX; Bellelli 2004; Lulof 2005; Winter 2009, pp. 395–493; see Chapter
49). Also on a black-fi gured hydria of the Micali Group (Fig. 48.3; Spivey 1987; Rizzo
1988), dated to the end of the sixth-early fi fth century bc, with a representation of a
worker in bronze, are found Greek formulaic inscriptions (epoios kalos, kalos [...]), written
in the same black paint as the vase, possibly to be attributed, because of the name, to a
master with East Greek training (Bocci – Maggiani 1985). The painting is not of high