Making Greek Vases

In ancient Greece, the phrase "to make pottery" meant to work hard. While all Greek pottery was made by similar methods, the pottery techniques of Athens are especially well understood. The typical Athenian pottery workshop was a small establishment consisting of a potter and several assistants. The potter prepared the clay, threw or formed the vases, and oversaw their firing. He may also have decorated the vases himself, or employed vase-painters to decorate his wares.

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27 thoughts on “Making Greek Vases”

  1. jonah jay tee

    i certainly like this. I can use this in my art classes. Thanks gettymuseum.

  2. croissant boy

    this is what im currently studying in art history.

  3. John Booth

    attiki clay is rather bright , due to kaolin illite. how ever the black gloss slip, was not made from this. these slips where seen as Sacred earth, , aside from this , why did german chemists research this in ww2. one clue in ancient greek vase. is this green patina. a sometimes sparkly patina. what is it, it comes out of the slip settling. it’s a boron. this material turns green in the kiln under reduction. ancient greek potters did use this material on their vases.

  4. John Booth

    utube powdered metallurgy , the ancient greeks appear to have been doing this to. and it is possible that the potters and painters had direct access to slips that had a duality roll. 30 years ago, when studying the ancient greek pottery at university, i was asked to make tiles in this black gloss, but what i found was not pottery persay. these reduction kiln firings are metals based. and if one is truely interested look at oxfords science park “bedbroke” nanosilicates in ceramics.

  5. E.D.N.A.

    I’m studying Greek pottery in my current Art History class, and this video was extremely helpful in understanding the black figure painting process! Thank you!

  6. Kandis Glasgow

    Coming from a family of potters it makes me happy that someone else makes our clay 🙂

  7. I study archeology and this was extremely helpful! It’s one thing to learn in theory and another to actually get to see the process!

  8. Lucas Bookfield

    Beautifully explained and illustrated!

    As an amateur Cartoonist, I always wanted my own Greek vase. We did some sculpting in school, but were never able to paint it…

  9. ReplayButtonMolester

    That was interesting….. I thought they just painted the red and black.

  10. Starry Night Productions

    Lot’s of different videos on how they were made ancient greek pottery…I’ll stick to this!

  11. Marc Gràcia

    I’ve seen the same technic used still today on pottery in my region. Is really astouding to see how old they are.

  12. Dani Tha Man

    I’m glad I found this channel. Love all the videos

    1. Mangiapanina zitta zitta gatta gatta

      Eheh…they obviously missed to say that 😉

  13. David Gonzalez

    Stop reading the comments and pay attention to the video!! 😂😂

  14. professionalvr

    As a PhD student in Classical Archaeology, this video was really helpful in visualising the process of black figure painting. I have heard lectures about the process during my BA and MA studies, but haven’t seen it done in a video.

  15. Tree Lore

    What made the painted parts turn glossy but not the main body of the pot? Clay composition or something else?

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