In 1912, a large collection of antiquities was bequeathed to Columbia University by George N. Olcott, then professor in the Department of Classical Philology. Many of the objects in this collection are now deposited in Art Properties. Among these objects is an Etruscan black-figure amphora (Figs. 1, 2) that has been associated with the Micali Painter, an Etruscan black-figure vase-painter active between 520 and 490 BCE in Vulci in central Italy on the Tyrrhenian coast. The present study reexamines the attribution using available visual and documentary evidence.

Reportedly acquired by Olcott during his travels to Italy between 1896 and 1912, the amphora came into the collection with a notecard from Olcott stating that it was excavated in the nineteenth century from Bisenzio, a minor inland settlement about 40 kilometers (25 miles) northeast of Vulci, and that Olcott purchased it from an unknown source at the time for $60. The amphora was first attributed to the Micali Painter in 1980 by Ingrid Edlund.1 Nigel Spivey subsequently revised its attribution to the Bisenzio Group, a group of vases he ascribed to a follower of the Micali Painter.2 Although our amphora is not mentioned in nineteenth-century excavation records of Bisenzio,3  the looting of antiquities from the area predates official excavations to as early as the end of the sixteenth century.4 It is possible that our amphora was dug up from one of the necropolises prior to official excavations of the site.

Elements of the amphora’s style and iconography corroborate an association with the Micali Painter. The iconography falls within his thematic repertoire: the body and shoulder are decorated with birds and the neck with a winged human-bird hybrid, usually identified as a siren, on either side. The technique of using multiple incised hooks to represent plumage, observable on the wings and chests of the birds and sirens (Figs. 3, 4), is particularly characteristic of the Micali Painter’s style, as are the stylized vines with dotted leaves which are held by each siren on the neck and decorate the background on the shoulder. However, neither feature confirms an attribution to the master himself, as both techniques were also copied by his pupils and followers.5

Our amphora falls short of the Micali Painter’s attributed works in the quality of its painting and incisions. The quality of paint is inconsistent: the slip on the lip and under the handles overflows the outline (Fig. 5), whereas in areas such as the neck, the glaze is too thin, resulting in a translucent brownish color (see Fig. 4). These details suggest the hands of a pupil rather than the master himself. Similar flaws are evident in the composition and the detailing of the figures. Edlund’s attribution was in part supported by the observation of visual similarities between the three large birds depicted on the body of our amphora and the five birds on the body of the amphora E 754 attributed to the Micali Painter in the Louvre (Fig. 6). However, our amphora seems to be more haphazardly planned in terms of composition: the birds on Louvre E 754 are compactly and evenly spaced, whereas on our amphora, the third bird under the handle on the reverse is squeezed between the others with truncated proportions and a cramped left wing (Fig. 7). The same issue recurs on the obverse of the shoulder (see Fig. 4), where the bird on the right appears compacted compared to its companion in the same register. Both these birds are also missing details: the large one under the handle on the body has hastily incised plumage while the small one on the right obverse shoulder is missing its feet entirely.

There are sufficient disparities in style between the different areas of the amphora to suggest the hands of multiple painters. At least two painters seem to have been responsible for the sides of the body: the bird on the obverse has a crest, pouch, and fully incised pupil and neck plumage (Fig. 8), whereas the two birds on the reverse lack these features, but have incised ears and beaks (see Figs. 3, 7). Their tails are also shaped differently: the bird on the obverse has a tail shaped like a brush (Fig. 9), whereas the two birds on the reverse side have tails resembling paddles or knobs. Both versions differ from the fan-shaped, striped tails favored by the Micali Painter, as seen in Louvre E 754 (see Fig. 6). The same painter working on the reverse of the body seems to have worked on the reverse of the shoulder, as the birds on the reverse of the shoulder (Fig. 10) are smaller versions of those on the body. However, the obverse of the shoulder (see Fig. 4) seems to have been the work of a third painter, as the birds there differ from either type portrayed on the body: they are presented in mixed perspectives, with wings seen from above and feet detached from the ground-line, as if in flight. The background is also characterized by the aforementioned dot-fronds, which are absent from the reverse of the shoulder but present on the neck.

The representation of the sirens on the neck (see Figs. 4, 10) differs from that in the Micali Painter’s works in their frontality: while images of sirens proliferate in his work, they are depicted in profile rather than with frontal human faces. The sirens are depicted as schematized composites of human and animal features, with rounded ears, bird’s wings, and conical bodies ending in bird’s tails. Notably, both sirens are depicted with the knob-like tails seen on all except one bird on our amphora but absent from other vases attributed to the Micali Painter. The quality of incisions varies again between the two sides of the neck, with the siren on the obverse incised less consistently than that on the reverse. It is possible that the siren on the obverse was painted by the same artist who did the flying birds directly below on the shoulder, given their similar rounded proportions and sense of movement.

Without further information on the amphora’s provenience and archaeological context, visual observation of the amphora only goes so far to uphold Spivey’s attribution to a follower of the Micali Painter and suggests the hands of multiple painters within the same workshop. Who were the painters behind the Bisenzio Group and what was the nature of their relationship to the Micali Painter? What was the amphora’s biography before it was deposited in Bisenzio and under what circumstances did it travel to New York? As is the case for many other unprovenienced artifacts purchased on the antiquities market, the remainder of the amphora’s journey from the potter’s workshop to Columbia remains obscure.

This article is a shortened version of a larger research project conducted in the spring of 2025. I would like to thank Dr. Roberto Ferrari, Lillian Vargas, and Eric Reisenger from Art Properties for providing access to and assistance with the collection and Tim Trombley from the Media Center for Art History for helping prepare this article for digital upload. I am grateful also to Professor Francesco de Angelis for offering his insights and guidance during the initial phase of research. Lastly, I would like to thank Professor Frédérique Baumgartner and Dr. Ferrari for creating this project and for their continued feedback throughout the research, writing, and revision process.

• 1

  Ingrid E. M. Edlund, “The Iron Age and Etruscan Vases in the Olcott Collection at Columbia University, New York,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 70, no. 1 (1980), 40.

• 2

  Nigel Spivey, The Micali Painter and His Followers (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 39–41. In addition to the amphora in Art Properties, the group includes an amphoretta and a column-krater excavated in the late 1920s from tomb no. 84 of the Olmo Bello necropolis in Bisenzio and three other amphorae, two unprovenienced and one from Chianciano. A fifth amphora in the British Museum (1956,1220.1), also unprovenienced, may be a late work of the painter of the group.

• 3

  Angelo Pasqui, “Bisenzio (Comune di Capodimonte sul lago di Bolsena),” in Notizie degli scavi di antichità (Roma: Accademia nazionale dei Lincei, 1886), 143–52, 177–205, 290–314. The first authorized excavation of Bisenzio was conducted from October 1884 to April 1885 under the direction of Count Giovanni Paolozzi from Chiusi and recorded by Pasqui. A second campaign was directed by Luigi A. Milani in 1894, after which the site was not officially excavated again until 1911. For the excavation history of Bisenzio, see Adelio Marziantonio, “L’etrusca città di ‘Visentum’ e le sue necropoli attraverso le fonti bibliografiche,” Biblioteca e società 28, no. 4 (2009), 24–28; see also Andrea Babbi, Filippo Delpino, and Mauro Lucarini, “Bisenzio (Capodimonte, VT - Italy) between the Bronze and the Archaic Age. A Minor Centre or a Relevant Hub in the Inland District of South Etruria? Report of the ‘Bisenzio Project’ Research Activities, 2015-2016,” BABESCH 94 (2019), 2–4.

• 4

  Filippo Delpino, “Bisenzio,” in Le urne a capanna rinvenute in Italia, ed. Gilda Bartoloni et al. (Roma: G. Bretschneider, 1987), 152.

• 5

  Spivey, The Micali Painter, 55–59, 63.