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Rider Painter
( fl c. 570–c. 535 BC). Greek vase painter. He was the least important of the five major Lakonian Black-figure vase painters of the 6th century BC, and his work was never innovative. The Rider Painter was a pupil of the BOREADS PAINTER and later imitated in turn the work of the Naukratis Painter, the Arkesilaos Painter and the Hunt Painter. He is named from the scenes of a rider accompanied by small winged daemons on three cups (St Petersburg, Hermitage, 183; London, BM, B1; Paris, Louvre, E 665), which may be imitations of a lost work by the Naukratis Painter. The least talented of his colleagues, he had a dry, careless style, particularly on his latest vases, and the only interesting aspect of his work is his predilection for lively narrative scenes, often given unusual and humorous renderings. His various mythological subjects include the heroes Herakles, Bellerophon, Achilles and Odysseus, and he also painted such everyday scenes as revels and symposia. Many scenes, however, suffer from clumsy and vague execution, which makes them difficult to interpret. Thus, a scene on a cup depicting a seated figure with an eagle (Tocra, Archaeol. Mus., 932) presumably imitates the Naukratis Painter’s scenes of Zeus (e.g. on a cup; Paris, Louvre, E 668), but it in fact looks more like Prometheus bound. A cup that appears to show an unidentified warrior attacking a snake at a fountain (Paris, Louvre, E 669) resembles depictions of Achilles’ ambush of Troilos, though it is certainly a different event, possibly Apollo and Python, or Kadmos and the Dragon.
Part of the Vase painters family
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