Review of J. M. Hurwit, Artists and Signatures in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, Journal of Hellenic Studies 137 (2018). (original) (raw)

The quest to define individual, artistic personalities in ancient Greek art is not new; a large number of books and articles on the subject exist. This chapter, however, focuses on a particular type of evidence related to the " individual " in ancient Greek art: the craftsman's signature. While discussions of signatures in mosaic, on statue bases, or in other media have borne interesting fruit, in this study we will focus on signatures found on Athenian pottery. 1 As a body of evidence Attic pottery is preserved in substantial quantities, is well-recorded, and represents a discrete data set. By setting these parameters, we hope to be better able to answer the questions of why Attic vases in particular were signed and what these signatures may suggest about the role of the individual craftsman in Greek art and history. While the incomplete nature of the archaeological record must render tentative any conclusions drawn on the basis of the number of signatures preserved, we do believe that enough evidence exists to allow us to suggest trends and to off er some conclusions, however speculative, about signed Athenian pottery. Thus, our aims in the present chapter are twofold. First, we will present a current consideration of artists' signatures, those of both painters and potters , which appear on Athenian pottery from the early sixth century to the mid-fourth century b.c.e. Second, we will explore why signatures appeared on vases at all, and why it was appropriate (and possible) for an individual to express his identity in this manner in the fi rst place. 2