“Loose ends”. The Kalathiskos and Hamburg Painters within the framework of Metapontine Red-Figure Workshops

For decades, A.D. Trendall’s classification of South Italian pottery has been, and still is, an invaluable tool for understanding the development of the red-figure workshops that operated in the cities and regions of Magna Graecia. However, The work is a reflection of the knowledge of its time, and it has been shown, especially by “post-Trendall” studies, that it needs to be reviewed and adapted to the contextual realities that have been progressively unveiled by field archaeologists and cultural historians. One of the characteristics of Trendall’s method – which differentiates him from Beazley – is the dynamic and evolutive nature of his stylistic groupings, clearly visible throughout his books and their supplements. Among other aspects, this includes the creation of small groups of painters or individual painters with small corpora; they can be considered “groupings of convenience” in cases where the stylistic data do not enable reliable inclusion in a recognised body of vessels. This evolutive approach did not end with Trendall, but its scope needs to be broadened to take account of the ongoing research, today very much a long-term endeavour involving a collective effort on the part of experts specialising in specific production centres and a range of disciplines. In addition to style, the archaeological and cultural contexts, the production techniques, the distribution of the vessels and their figurative language all play a role in this endeavour. As an illustration of some of the “loose ends” requiring re-evaluation, we present here some case studies related to the Dolon and Creusa workshop, one of the best-known in Southern Italy. By re-examining the vessels attributed to the Hamburg Painter, the Kalathiskos Painter and even the Dolon Painter himself, we shall try to resolve some of the ambiguities in their corpora and potentially contribute to the identification of certain phenomena that are characteristic of the workshop’s processes and organization.