Red Figure Cups with Incised and Stamped Decoration I

Abstract

Among the simpler and cheaper types of pottery in common use in the fifth century B.C. and later, one of the most attractive is the black-glaze ware decorated with incised and stamped patterns. A certain quantity of this has been found in undisturbed single burials or in other contexts which provide external evidence for its dating and development, notably in Sicily and South Russia, at Rhitsona in Boeotia and more recently in the Agora at Athens. Further and still more reliable evidence is to be found in the series of vases, mainly cups, in which similar incised or stamped patterns are found combined on one and the same pot with red-figure painting. The use of incision and stamping in the interior of the cups instead of the normal painted medallion no doubt made for cheapness, and the red-figure work is never of a very high standard. Nevertheless, some of the fifth-century examples have sufficient merit to be looked at for their own sake, while the combination of the two styles gives a useful equation.