Ancient Attic Greek Vases
folds and other details in the garments. T e next step consisted of painting contour lines around the fi gures to create a safe margin and prevent the broadly applied background glaze from disrupting the edges of the fi gures. Examination by RTI of the areas where relief and contour lines meet revealed that on every Attic piece in this study the contour line overlaps the relief lines where the relief lines extend into the black background, confi rming that the contour line was painted aſt er the relief line as Kunisch and Cohen propose.
Figure 6 : Left: Kylix fragment attributed to the Antiphon Painter, c. 480 BCE. Courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, 01.8073. Right: Detail of the fragment showing what is likely a linierhaar in the painter’s right hand and possibly a small container holding the glaze in his left. Republished with permission of Maney Publishing, from [2]; permission conveyed through CCC.
Conclusion
RTI and 3D LSCM, two comple- mentary surface examination methods not previously used together in the study of ceramics, have led to new insights in the study of ancient Greek vases. T ese nondestructive, noninvasive methods enable researchers to examine surface topography more in-depth by providing qualitative (RTI) and quantitative (3D LSCM) data. T is combination will prove useful in future investigations where surface examination is central, not only to determine fabrication methods, but also to evaluate the impact of art conservation treatments and examine and document surface degradation.
Figure 7 : RTI still-capture with specular enhancement showing the use of a wide contour line around the head of a female attendant depicted on the stamnos, which is part of the broadly applied background glaze. The white circle in the magnifi ed detail on the right illustrates how the contour line overlaps the ends of the relief lines that extend into the background area, indicating that the application of the relief lines preceded the contour line. Republished with permission of Maney Publishing, from [2]; permission conveyed through CCC.
the vessel followed by liſt ing the brush straight up, creating the distinctive ridged profi le of the line. T e resulting line is typi- cally no longer than the length of the brush hair. In contrast, the pulled line is created by setting down all or part of the brush, and while leaving the hair in contact with the vessel, the brush is pulled across the surface creating a characteristic furrowed profi le as the tip of the brush drags through the medium producing lines that are longer than the length of the brush hair. While the pulled-line technique was used on all Attic red-
fi gure vases, the laid-line technique seems to have become more prevalent as a second line type during the peak of the red-fi gure period in the fi ſt h century BCE [ 2 ]. Before then, painters—probably unaware of the laid-line technique—also made shorter lines using the pulled-line technique. T e result is that these lines are oſt en truncated and of varying thickness compared with the more even and controlled lines produced later with the laid-line technique. T is study also gives insight into the production sequence used by red-fi gure painters. During the process of surface decoration by Attic painters, relief lines were applied fi rst to describe the general outline of the red-fi gure portions of the composition as well as features like the arms, legs, eyes, ears, and
34
Acknowledgements T e authors would like to thank Susanne Ebbinghaus and Amy Brauer at the Harvard Art Museums for the loan of the Harvard Attic vase frag- ments for study and imaging. T anks
also to Christine Kondoleon, Phoebe Segal, and Abigail Hykin at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston for making it possible to examine and photograph the kylix fragment by Antiphon. T e authors’ gratitude goes to Professor Christopher A. Brown from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s Surface Metrology Laboratory and Doug Kennedy of Olympus America for making the LEXT OLS4000 3D laser scanning confocal microscope available for this research. T e authors also want to acknowledge the support and input from their colleagues in the conservation department of the Worcester Art Museum: Rita Albertson, Matthew Cushman, Kari Dodson, and Birgit Strähle.
References [1] P Artal-Isbrand et al ., “ An Evaluation of Decorative Techniques on a Red-Figure Attic Vase from the Worcester Art Museum using Refl ectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) and Confocal Microscopy with a Special Focus on the ‘Relief Line,’ ”. in P Vandiver et al., eds., Materials Issues in Art and Archaeology IX, vol. 1319 , ‘ Cambridge University Press and Materials Research Society ’, New York , 2011 , 3 – 33 .
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