Preliminary Sketch in Greek Vase-Painting

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Abstract
The use of preliminary sketch in Attic red-figure is so widespread and so familiar that even in a detailed publication its presence often passes unmentioned, yet illustrations of it are not always easy to find. It may therefore be helpful to bring together some examples on which the sketch-work is of particular interest and at the same time to include instances of what is basically the same procedure, but applied to other techniques of vase-painting. As is well known, the sketch is composed of shallow grooves made in the surface of the clay before firing; the lines are most obvious in the reserved areas, but it can sometimes be seen that they extend into the black background, and when they do, the shininess of the black in the grooves shows clearly that they were made before the black was applied. The exact nature of the instrument with which the sketch was drawn is not known; the grooves generally look as if they had been made with a small, blunt tool, though whether it was wood or metal or some other material cannot be determined. Each artist no doubt had his own favourite implement, but it is worth noting that occasionally, and above all on Apulian red-figure, the sketch-lines are narrow slits cut into the clay; this kind of line, at least, must have been made with something sharp, presumably a metal graver. The amount of detail in the sketch varies from man to man, and there may even be differences between works that can be attributed to the same hand, or between the two sides of the same pot. Sometimes the artist does no more than block out the general masses and arrangement of the figures; on other vases the preliminary work is very exact and on occasion may be more detailed than the final drawing.