MANNER OF THE PITTSBURGH PAINTER, CIRCA 525-500 B.C.

The application of a white slip to some portion of a vase, often providing a surface for decoration, was a special technique invented in Athens during the third quarter of the 6th century B.C. (see p. 186 in J.R. Mertens, “Attic White Ground: Potter and Painter,” in B. Cohen, et al., The Colors of Clay, Special Techniques in Athenian Vases). The technique is first associated with the potters Andokides, Psiax and Nikosthenes, mostly on black-figured hydriai, neck-amphorae and kylikes, and later, and especially, on lekythoi. On kylikes the white slip was applied on the exterior only for black-figure; the reverse was the norm for red-figure.
According to Mertens (p. 93 in “Attic White Ground Cups: A Special Class of Vases,” Metropolitan Museum Journal 9, 1974), there are only about thirty white-ground cups with black-figure decoration, at least fifteen of which are eye-cups, as presented here. At the center of the white-ground exterior is a draped youth riding a mule between eyes, with a maenad to the left, looking back, and a satyr looking on from the right. Vines fill the field, and the inner of the of the concentric rings within the eyes is painted in ‘second white’; some details are in added red. The tondo is centered by a canonical gorgoneion.