The Kleophrades Painter
Michael Padgett, Princeton University

6. Preferred Shapes: Kraters

The Kleophrades Painter did paint a few smaller vases, and his few cups are among his finest works, but he was primarily a painter of larger pots such as kraters, amphorae, hydriai, and pelikai. His range is wide, with all of the major krater types represented and most of the amphorae. Most numerous are the calyx-kraters, over twenty of them, which may be painted with figures in continuous procession around the vase, isolated on two sides by the floral ornament over the handles, or with only two figures on either side and large black areas above the handles.[37] Euthymides seems not to have painted any calyx-kraters, and Robertson suggests that the young Kleophrades Painter therefore must have looked to Euphronios for inspiration.[38] This may be so, but his awareness of Euphronios' kraters did not extend to borrowing their subsidiary ornament, which are of a different kind. All have palmettes of one kind or another on the rim: those in red-figure may be arranged in a row, each upright and enclosed by tendrils,[39] or slanted and arranged back to back.[40] Black palmettes are connected by tendrils and may be arranged alternately up and down,[41] or lying on their sides.[42]

38. See Robertson 1992, 60-61. For calyx-kraters by Euphronios, see EdM 1991, 61-127.

39. E.g. Harvard 1960.236, discussed below.