Abstract
Cemeteries that encircled the Campanian town of Nola furnished many of the ancient vases most highly sought after by eighteenth-century collectors. Attracted by the exceptional quality of the glazes on what was later recognized as Attic pottery, antiquaries looked to the figured scenes for reflections of lost masterpieces of ancient Greek painting. Enmeshed practices of connoisseurship, scholarship and commerce were already firmly in place by the 1740s. Comparing vases to Old Master drawings and adopting modes of display popular for Continental porzellan-kabinetten, collectors relocated Greek vase painting from the realm of curiosity to that of fine art.
Published Version
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