Three Laconian Vase-Painters

The last comprehensive study of Laconian, by E. A. Lane, was published in 1936, and to this all subsequent work in the field, including the present article, is greatly indebted. What follows is intended to develop one particular aspect of Lane's study, the identification of individual painters and their work. The need for exploration along such lines will hardly be disputed nowadays. Nevertheless, it may be worth referring to the succinct appraisal of such investigation by Dunbabin and Robertson.The attributions here published comprise almost all Laconian vases with figure decoration found outside Laconia, in so far as they have been made known, and a number of the pieces discovered at Sparta itself. They show that a total of three painters, two of them pupils of one, were with their workshop followers responsible for the output of practically all the more ambitious Laconian vases. It remains to be seen how far this conclusion is borne out by the finds from Samos, the one considerable body of Laconian material still unpublished.