Euphronios (c-540 - c-480). 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, Euphronios was one of the most important artists of the red-figure technique. His works place him at the transition from Late Archaic to Early Classical art, and he is one of the first known artists in history to have signed his work. In contrast to other artists, such as sculptors, no Ancient Greek literature sources refer specifically to vase painters. The copious literary tradition on the arts hardly mention pottery. Thus reconstruction of Euphronios's life and artistic development, like that of all Greek vase painters, can only be derived from his works. Modern scientific study of Greek pottery began near the end of the 18th century. Initially, interest focused on iconography. The discovery of the first signature of Euphronios in 1838 revealed that individual painters could be identified and named, so that their works might be ascribed to them. This led to an intensive study of painters' signatures, and by the late 19th century, scholars began to compile stylistic compendia. The archaeologist John D. Beazley used these compendia as a starting point for his own work. He systematically described and catalogued thousands of Attic black-figure and red-figure vases and sherds, using the methods of the art historian Giovanni Morelli for the study of paintings. In three key volumes on Attic painters, Beazley achieved a taxonomy that remains mostly valid to this day. He listed all known painters who produced individual works of art which can always be unmistakably ascribed. Today, most painters are identified, though their names often remain unknown. Euphronios must have been born around 535 BC, when Athenian art and culture bloomed during the tyranny of Peisistratos. Most Attic pottery was then painted in the black-figure style. Much of the Athenian pottery production of that time was exported to Etruria. Most of the extant Attic pottery has been recovered as grave goods from Etruscan tombs. At the time, vase painting received major new impulses from potters such as Nikosthenes and Andokides. The Andokides workshop began the production of red-figure pottery around 530 BC. Gradually, the new red-figure technique began to replace the older black-figure style. Euphronios was to become one of the most important representatives of early red-figure vase painting in Athens. Together with a few other contemporary young painters, modern scholarship counts him as part of the Pioneer Group of red-figure painting. Euphronios appears to have started painting vases around 520 BC, probably under the tutelage of Psiax. Later, Euphronios himself was to have a major influence on the work of his erstwhile master, as well as on that of several other older painters. Later he worked in the workshop of the potter Kachrylion, under supervision of the painter Oltos. His works from this early phase already show several of Euphronios' artistic characteristics: his tendency to paint mythological scenes, his preference for monumental compositions, but also for scenes from everyday life, and his careful rendering of muscles and movement. The latter aspects particularly indicate a close link with Psiax, who painted in a similar style. Apart from a few fragments, a bowl in London and one in Malibu can be ascribed to this phase of his work. The most important early vase, however, is a signed specimen depicting Sarpedon. It was only through the appearance of this vase on the international market that Euphronios' early works could be recognised and distinguished from the paintings of Oltos, who had previously been credited with some works by Euphronios. Although it later became common for painters to sign their best works, signatures were rarely used in black-figure and early red-figure painting. Even Euphronios's earliest known works show a total control of the technical abilities necessary for red-figure vase painting. Similarly, a number of technical advances which were adopted as part of the standard red-figure technique can be first seen in his work. To render the depictions of human anatomy more plastic and realistic, he introduced the relief line and the use of diluted clay slip. Depending on how it is applied, the slip can acquire a range of colours between light yellow and dark brown during firing, thus multiplying the stylistic possibilities available to the artist. Euphronios's technical and artistic innovations were apparently quickly influential; pieces produced during his early period by other painters working for Kachrylion, and even by his former teachers Psiax and Oltos, show stylistic and technical aspects first seen in Euphronios's own work.