Antiquities Circle Lecture: The Red and the Black: Potters Conversations Between Etruria and Greece

In the first millennium BCE, the Mediterranean was a vast networking area for economic and intercultural interactions among a mosaic of people: Phoenicians, Etruscans, Greeks and many others. Between the late 8th and the late 4th century BCE, the exchanges between Greece and Etruria formed a significant part of this network. Though not the only type of goods exchanged—and certainly not the most important—pottery exported to Etruria, especially Corinthian and Attic black- and red-figure vases, is the most striking and famous witness of this context. For decades, scholarship analyzed this relation, its economic, artistic and cultural impact from a predominant Greek perspective, considering the Etruscan cities as a mere receptor of an acculturating Greek civilization.

Today scholarship tends to pay more attention to Etruscan agency and the impact of Etruscan tastes on Greek potters and painters. Etruscan exports in the Aegean are now better identified and documented. This more inclusive angle of approach is far from new, however, and indebted to earlier individual research dedicated to specific case studies. As early as 1952, for instance, Pierre Courbin identified the Etruscan origin of the archaic Attic kantharos. Bearing in mind Joseph Veach Nobles's interest for pottery techniques and starting from some of his collected pieces, this talk will place the focus on some striking cases of mutual inspiration between Etruria and Greece, focusing on the black and red-and-black appearance of the vases.

Lectures are offered:
Art+ Museum Members: Free
Not-Yet-Members: $25
College Students: Free