Swallow Painter

In the decades around 630 BC, the Etruscan city of Vulci, north of Rome, was rich and eager for painted pottery from abroad. A painter born and trained in the Greek east, the coast and islands of what is now western Turkey, went a step further and moved his workshop there. We know him only by a modern name, the Swallow Painter, given by the Italian archaeologist Antonio Giuliano, who first gathered his work.

He drew elegant friezes of animals in the manner of his homeland and filled the gaps with dotted rosettes, repeating his favourite motifs often. Only a small group of vases is assigned to him so far, and many show cracks and firing faults, which makes scholars wonder whether he fired his own kilns or worked alongside local potters still learning the craft. He kept working in Vulci until about 600 BC, gradually adapting his repertoire to Etruscan taste.