The Persephone Painter, working from about 475 to 425 BCE, is the pseudonym of an ancient

Attic An attic (sometimes referred to as a '' loft'') is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building. It is also known as a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because they fill the space between the ceiling of a building's t ...

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

vase painter, named by Sir

John Beazley Sir John Davidson Beazley (; 13 September 1885 – 6 May 1970) was a British classical archaeologist and art historian, known for his classification of Attic vases by artistic style. He was professor of classical archaeology and art at the U ...

after investigating a

red-figure Red-figure pottery () is a style of Pottery of ancient Greece, ancient Greek pottery in which the background of the pottery is painted black while the figures and details are left in the natural red or orange color of the clay. It developed in A ...

bell-krater A krater or crater (, ; , ) was a large two-handled type of vase in Ancient Greek pottery and metalwork, mostly used for the mixing of wine with water. Form and function At a Greek symposium, kraters were placed in the center of the room. The ...

vase of about 440 BC, which includes a mythological scene of the return of

Persephone In ancient Greek mythology and Ancient Greek religion, religion, Persephone ( ; , classical pronunciation: ), also called Kore ( ; ) or Cora, is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. She became the queen of the Greek underworld, underworld afte ...

from

Hades Hades (; , , later ), in the ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, is the god of the dead and the king of the Greek underworld, underworld, with which his name became synonymous. Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea ...

. This

name vase In classical archaeology, a name vase is a specific "vase"In the study of ancient Greek pottery a "vase" is a general term covering all pottery shapes. whose painter's name is unknown but whose workshop style has been identified. The painter is c ...

of the Persephone Painter currently resides at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

in New York City. The Persephone Painter is known for his close relationship to the

Achilles Painter The Achilles Painter was a vase-painter active ca. 470–425 BC. His name vase is an amphora, Vatican 16571, in the Vatican Museums depicting Achilles and dated 450–445 BC. An armed and armored Achilles gazes pensively to the right with one ...

, through whose workshop the Persephone Painter passed. Winfred van de Put suggested that Persephone Painter may be identified with the

Thanatos Painter The Thanatos Painter (5th century BCE) was an Athenian Ancient Greek vase painter who painted scenes of death on white-ground cylindrical lekythoi. All of the Thanatos Painter's found lekythoi have scenes of or related to death (''thanatos'' in ...

. There are currently 26 works attributed to the Persephone Painter and these include both large and small vases.

References

External links

Works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
5th-century BC deaths 5th-century BC painters Ancient Greek vase painters Anonymous artists of antiquity Year of birth unknown Persephone {{AncientGreece-bio-stub