The Antiphon painter was an Athenian vase painter of the early 5th century BC. He owes his name to a double Kalos inscription

Kalos inscription

The Kalos inscription was a form of epigraph found on Attic vases and graffiti in antiquity, common between 550 and 450 BC, and usually found on symposion vessels. The word καλός means "beautiful"; here it had an erotic connotation, and the inscription took the form of a youth's name, in the...

 of Antiphon on the dinos stand in the Antique collection of Berlin (Inventory number F 2325). He was active between 500 and 475 BC in Athens as a painter of the red figure style in the largest workshop of the 5th Century. He learned his handicraft in the workshop of Euphronios

Euphronios

Euphronios was an ancient Greek vase painter and potter, active in Athens in the late 6th and early 5th centuries BC. As part of the so-called "Pioneer Group,"...

 and Onesimos

Onesimos (vase painter)

Onesimos was an ancient Athenian vase painter who flourished between 505 and 480 BC. He specialized in decorating cups, mostly of Type B, which comprise virtually all known examples of his work....

. There he worked closely with them, the Kalmarer painter and other painters.

There are about 100 drinking containers of his (primarily Kylikes

Kylix (drinking cup)

A kylix is a type of wine-drinking glass with a broad relatively shallow body raised on a stem from a foot and usually with two horizontal handles disposed symmetrically...

) known to us. They almost exclusively depict the life of the aristocratic

Aristocracy (class)

The aristocracy are people considered to be in the highest social class in a society which has or once had a political system of Aristocracy. Aristocrats possess hereditary titles granted by a monarch, which once granted them feudal or legal privileges, or deriving, as in Ancient Greece and India,...

 youth of Athens. They are shown as athletes, in Symposia

Symposium

In ancient Greece, the symposium was a drinking party. Literary works that describe or take place at a symposium include two Socratic dialogues, Plato's Symposium and Xenophon's Symposium, as well as a number of Greek poems such as the elegies of Theognis of Megara...

, as Komasten, with their horse

Horse

The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...

s or in arms. Representations of women - in particular Hetairai - are rare, as are mythological

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

 topics. When he depicts mythological subjects, they are usually the heroic acts of Herakles or Theseus

Theseus

For other uses, see Theseus Theseus was the mythical founder-king of Athens, son of Aethra, and fathered by Aegeus and Poseidon, both of whom Aethra had slept with in one night. Theseus was a founder-hero, like Perseus, Cadmus, or Heracles, all of whom battled and overcame foes that were...

. One of his bowls possibly refers to the Battle of Marathon

Battle of Marathon

The Battle of Marathon took place in 490 BC, during the first Persian invasion of Greece. It was fought between the citizens of Athens, aided by Plataea, and a Persian force commanded by Datis and Artaphernes. It was the culmination of the first attempt by Persia, under King Darius I, to subjugate...

(Orvieto, Collection Faina).

A special speciality of the painter were his red figure Eye bowls. The Antiphon Painter was the last artist to create these.

See also