Meleager Painter

Two athletes. Tondo of a bowl, circa 400/375 BC. Paris, Louvre.

The Calydonian boar hunt on his name vase: Atalante seated, flanked by Meleagros and perhaps Tydeus, Nolan amphora, circa 300/375 BC. Athens, National Archaeological Museum.

The Meleager Painter was an ancient Greek vase painter of the Attic red-figure tradition. He was active in the first third of the 4th century BC. The Meleager Painter followed a tradition started by a group of slightly earlier artists, such as the Mikion Painter. He is probably the most important painter of his generation. He painted a wide variety of vase shapes, including even kylikes, a rarity among his contemporaries. His conventional name is derived from several vases depicting hunters, including Atalante and her lover Meleagros. Colonette kraters and bell kraters by him normally bear dionysiac motifs. Like other painters of his time, he liked to paint figures wearing oriental garb. The tondos inside his kylikes are often framed by wreaths. They mostly depict groups of deities or individual gods. The outsides of kylikes and the paintings on the backs of other vases by him are often of inferior quality.

Bibliography

John D. Beazley. Attic Red Figure Vase Painters. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963.
John Boardman. Rotfigurige Vasen aus Athen. Die klassische Zeit, Philipp von Zabern, Mainz, 1991 (Kulturgeschichte der Antiken Welt, Band 48), besonders, p. 176 ISBN 3-8053-1262-8.

Source of translation

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Pottery of ancient Greece

Wine vessel shapes	Dinos Kotyle Krater Kyathos Psykter Rhyton Skyphos

Tableware	Eye-cup Kantharos Kylix Oenochoe Olpe Patera Pinakion

Perfume, oil, and wedding shapes	Alabastron Aryballos Askos Lebes Gamikos Lekythos Loutrophoros Lydion Pyxis Stirrup jar

Funerary shapes and cultic shapes	Kernos Lekythos Loutrophoros Phiale

Storage shapes	Amphora Hydria Kalathos Kalpis Lebes Pelike Pithos Stamnos

Utilitarian ceramics	Chuta Epinetron Luchnos Situla

Techniques	Bilingual pottery Black-figure Bucchero Red-figure Six's technique Three-phase firing White-ground

Styles	Ancient Greek vase-painting styles

Potters and painters	List of Greek potters List of Greek vase painters List of Little Masters Name vase

Museums noted for pottery	Athens Basel und Ludwig Berlin Bodrum British Edinburgh Getty Heraklion Louvre Thera Ure Vatican Walters

Writers and books	Adolf Furtwängler Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum Dietrich von Bothmer Edmond Pottier John Beazley John Boardman Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae

Special topics in Greek pottery	Frying pans Kalos inscription Nikosthenic amphora Panathenaic amphora Symposium Typology