Painter of Nicosia Olpe
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The Painter of Nicosia Olpe was an ancient Greek vase painter, who was producing work around 575 BC to 475 BC, and these dates are concluded from the vases that were found and attributed to the specific painter. All of the pieces are black-figure, and this can also be determined by the dates. The majority of vases that he painted were larger pieces; this is not something that he had control over, but he did have control over the scenes on the vases.[1]
There are forty-five vases that are attributed to the Painter of Nicosia Olpe that are recorded and posted on the Beazley Archive. Out of those forty-five vases more than half are larger vase shapes such as amphora, amphora B, neck amphora, skyphos, and more. These large vases were found mostly in Italy, which means that most of the vases that the painter and workshop were producing were for the Italian market. Twelve of the forty-five vases were found in different parts of Italy such as Etruria, Capua, Nola, Taranto and South Italy as well. With the number of vases going to Italy one can conclude that there was a great need for large vases in Italy. There is a great number of larger vases being produced by the workshop, which means that the painter was able to draw and paint larger scenes of his choice. In this case the painter chose to mainly focus on departure scenes, and scenes of the God Dionysus with maenads and satyrs. There are two types of departure scenes that include horsemen or a chariot, however both of the types have youths and women.[2]