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Lot Essay
The Edinburgh Painter is the most well-known and arguably the best funerary lekythos painter of the Late Archaic Period. This lekythos combines two decorative techniques which were popular with Attic potters in the last decades of the 6th Century B.C., the ancient black-figure technique with incised detailing and added white or purple, and the later innovation of white-ground which became widespread in the 5th Century B.C., particularly on funerary lekythoi. The white details on the black-figured areas are known as 'second white'. For a discussion on Attic vase painting techniques, cf. B. Cohen, The Colors of Clay, Special Techniques in Athenian Vases, Malibu, 2006. On the Edinburgh painter cf. J.D. Beazley, Attic Black-Figure Vase Painters, New York, 1978, p. 476ff.
The scene depicted here represents an important moment in the Trojan War, as related in book XIX of The Iliad. Following the death of his best friend Patroclus, Achilles decided to resume the fight against the Trojans. His mother Thetis commissioned Hephaestus to make a new set of armour for him which she presents to her son here as he and his soldiers mourn the loss of their friend. Cf. A. Kossatz-Deissmann, LIMC, vol. I., "Achilleus", pls. 187-198.
The scene depicted here represents an important moment in the Trojan War, as related in book XIX of The Iliad. Following the death of his best friend Patroclus, Achilles decided to resume the fight against the Trojans. His mother Thetis commissioned Hephaestus to make a new set of armour for him which she presents to her son here as he and his soldiers mourn the loss of their friend. Cf. A. Kossatz-Deissmann, LIMC, vol. I., "Achilleus", pls. 187-198.