( fl c. 565–c. 530 BC). Greek vase painter. His name derives from two cups (Florence, Mus. Archeol., 85118; Leipzig, Karl-Marx-U., Archäol. Inst., T 302; Paris, Louvre, E 670) showing a boar hunt, possibly the legendary Kalydonian one. He had a long career, and many of his vases survive. His range of subject-matter and quality of drawing make him one of the most important Lakonian vase painters. Unlike the earlier Naukratis Painter and Boreads Painter, whose work shows Corinthian influence, the Hunt Painter owed more to Attic vase painting for both his drawing style and his iconography. Apart from cups, which were widely exported, he painted a hydria found on Rhodes (Rhodes, Archaeol. Mus., 15373) and a few lakainai, which come from Sparta itself. He probably invented a new shape of cup, the Lakonian droop cup (e.g. Oxford, Ashmolean, 1935.192; Taranto, Mus. N., 52847), similar to the contemporary Attic droop cup, though it is not known which variety was developed first, and he apparently produced more inscribed vases than any other Lakonian vase painter. The Hunt Painter favoured narrative scenes and had a rich mythological repertory, often using episodes from the story of Herakles. He also painted such everyday scenes as fighting, hunting and revelling. Both of the hunting scenes after which he is named are porthole compositions, with part of the image cut off by the frame of the tondo, a characteristic device employed several times by the Hunt Painter.

Part of the Vase painters family

• Hunt Painter
  • Greece, ancient, §V, 5(iii): Black-figure pottery: Lakonian