Oltos

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Oltos was a Late Archaic Greek vase painter, active in Athens. From the time berween 525 BC and 500 BC, about 150 works by him are known. Two pieces, "bowl F 2264" (Berlin, Antikensammlung) and "bowl RC 6848" (Tarquinia (Museo Nazionale Tarquiniese), are signed by him.

Oltos began his career in the workshop of the potter Nikosthenes. Initially, he mainly painted bilingual vases or bowls with interior black-figure and exterior red-figure decoration. His black-figure style was influenced by Psiax and the Antimenes Painter. No pure black-figure works by Oltos are known so far. His tondos usually depict a single figure. They are often full of tension, frequently with differential directions of gaze and movement. Later, he exclusively engaged in red-figure painting, influenced especially by the Andokides Painter as well as several members of the Pioneer Group, especially his former pupil Euphronios.

His drawing style was spacious and elegant, but never reached the depth of detail of his most important contemporary masters. He had a distinctive tendency towards luxurious ornamentation and symmetric compositions. In the middle of his career he concentrated especially on the depiction of mythological scenes. Over time, he worked with several different potters. We know of at least six: Hischylos, most importantly Pamphaios, with whom he created the earliest known stamnos, Tleson, Chelis, and finally Kachrylion, for whom he worked together with Euphronios, as well as Euxitheos.

An innovation introduced by Oltos is found on an amphora at London (British Museum E 259). Here, he depicts a single figure, with no frame or floor line.

[edit] Selected Works

• Altenburg, Staatliches Lindenau-Museum

bowl 224

• Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Museum

fragment of a kylix AIA B1

• Basel, Antikensammlung and Sammlung Ludwig

bowl BS 459

• Berlin, Antikensammlung

bowl F 2263 • bowl F 2264 • phiale F 2310 • bowl F 4220 • bowl F 4221

• Boston, Museum of Fine Arts

kylix 13.83 • fragment of a kylix 08.31d • fragment 10.219

• Bowdoin, Bowdoin College Museum of Art

fragment of a kylix 1913.14

• Chicago, University of Chicago (David and Alfred Smart Gallery)

kylix 1967.115

• Fayetteville, The University Museum

kylix 56.25.15

• London, The British Museum

kylix E 41 • amphora E 258 • stamnos E 437

• Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum

kylix 86.AE.276 • kylix 86.AE.277

• Mount Holyoke, Mount Holyoke College Art Museum

kylix 1967.BS.II.11

• Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlungen

bowl 25 93 • bowl 2618

• New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

psykter 1989.281.69

• Paris, Musée National du Louvre

fragment CA 3662 • amphora G 2 • amphora G 3

• Tarquinia, Museo Nazionale Tarquiniese

bowl RC 6848

• Vatican, Museo Gregoriano Etrusco Vaticano

bowl 498

[edit] Bibliography

• Joachim Harnecker: Oltos. Untersuchungen zu Themenwahl und Stil eines früh-rotfigurigen Schalenmalers, Lang, Frankfurt a. M. u. a. 1992, ISBN 3-631-43755-2
• This article was initially translated from the Wikipedia article Oltos, specifically from this version.

[edit] External links

• MFA Boston Kylix Fragments
• NY Met Psykter
• Louvre amphora
• Tarquinia, Museo Nazionale Tarquiniese RC6848
• Louvre G-3
• Perseus site images

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