It could be from the 450s, conceivably from the later 460s, comparing a lot of very venturesome
terracotta Melian reliefs (for example). Not 480s, I agree. A very brilliant engraver, he manages by dead reckoning what end-of-5th-century engravers (
Syracuse,
Katane) have trouble with, that foreshortened nose. This brilliant, very early (I think) one, like some of the very most brilliant first attempts in vase-painting, succeeds in looking natural. A great artist differs in really knowing what he wants to achieve. One might almost think that, with relatively little physical
work on the die, requiring only
genius, some of the best
intaglio engravers vied with one another. The rendering of the hair, and the conception of the visage of
Apollo are incompatible with a dating c 480, in my opinion.
Ionian it is but not far in date from the original of the Kassel
Apollo (even as known in those copies), which I think indeed is Attic (never mind which name).
These initial breakthroughs in western art are always breathtaking.
Patricia Lawrence
