She was the daughter of the painter Micon the Younger of Athens.[1] According to Pliny the Elder, she "scorned the duties of women and practised her father's art." At the time of Archelaus I of Macedon she was best known for a panel painting of the goddess Diana that was kept at Ephesus, a city that the goddess.[2] While it is no longer extant, it was kept at Ephesus for many years.[citation needed]
She is one of the six female artists of antiquity mentioned in Pliny the Elder's Natural History (XL.147–148) in A.D. 77: Timarete, Irene, Calypso, Aristarete, Iaia, Olympias.[3] They are mentioned later in Boccaccio's De mulieribus claris.
Primary sources
Pliny the Elder Naturalis historia xxxv.35.59, 40.147.
Secondary sources
Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. Thames and Hudson, London, 1990.
Harris, Anne Sutherland and Linda Nochlin. Women Artists: 1550–1950. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Knopf, New York, 1976.
Ephesus was a city in Ancient Greece on the coast of Ionia, 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) southwest of present-day Selçuk in İzmir Province, Turkey. It was built in the 10th century BC on the site of Apasa, the former Arzawan capital, by Attic and Ionian Greek colonists. During the Classical Greek era, it was one of twelve cities that were members of the Ionian League. The city came under the control of the Roman Republic in 129 BC.
Arachne is the protagonist of a tale in Greek mythology known primarily from the version told by the Roman poet Ovid (43 BCE–17 CE), which is the earliest extant source for the story. In Book Six of his epic poem Metamorphoses, Ovid recounts how the talented mortal Arachne challenged the goddess Athena to a weaving contest. When Athena could find no flaws in the tapestry Arachne had woven for the contest, the goddess became enraged and beat the girl with her shuttle. After Arachne hanged herself out of shame, she was transformed into a spider. The myth both provides an aetiology of spiders' web-spinning abilities and was a cautionary tale about hubris.
Eirene or Irene was an ancient Greek artist described by Pliny the Elder in the 1st century. She was the daughter of a painter, and created an image of a girl that was housed at Eleusis.
Apelles of Kos was a renowned painter of ancient Greece. Pliny the Elder, to whom much of modern scholars' knowledge of this artist is owed, rated him superior to preceding and subsequent artists. He dated Apelles to the 112th Olympiad, possibly because he had produced a portrait of Alexander the Great.
Zeuxis was a Greek painter who flourished during the 5th century BCE and became famous for his ability to imitate nature and especially still life with his art.
In Greek mythology, Calypso was a nymph who lived on the island of Ogygia, where, according to Homer's Odyssey, she detained Odysseus for seven years. She promised Odysseus immortality if he would stay with her, but Odysseus preferred to return home.
Artemisia II of Caria was a naval strategist, commander and the sister and the successor of Mausolus, ruler of Caria. Mausolus was a satrap of the Achaemenid Empire, yet enjoyed the status of king or dynast of the Hecatomnid dynasty. After the death of her brother/husband, Artemisia reigned for two years, from 353 to 351 BCE. Her ascension to the throne prompted a revolt in some of the island and coastal cities under her command due to their objection to a female ruler. Her administration was conducted on the same principles as that of her husband; in particular, she supported the oligarchical party on the island of Rhodes.
Kresilas was a Greek sculptor in the Classical period, from Kydonia. He was trained in Argos and then worked in Athens at the time of the Peloponnesian War, as a follower of the idealistic portraiture of Myron. He is best known for his statue Pericles with the Corinthian helmet.
Parrhasius of Ephesus was one of the greatest painters of Ancient Greece.
Apollodorus Skiagraphos was an influential Ancient Greek painter of the 5th century BC whose work has since been entirely lost. Apollodorus left a technique behind known as skiagraphia, a way to easily produce shadow, that affected the works not only of his contemporaries but also of later generations. This shading technique uses hatched areas to give the illusion of both shadow and volume.
Iaia of Cyzicus, sometimes (incorrectly) called Lala or Lalla, or rendered as Laia or Maia, was a Greek painter born in Cyzicus, Roman Empire, and relatively exceptional for being a woman artist and painting women's portraits. She was alive during the time of Marcus Terentius Varro. In De Mulieribus Claris, his book of women's biographies, Boccaccio refers to her as "Marcia", possibly confusing her with the Vestal Virgin of that name. According to Pliny the Elder: "No one had a quicker hand than she in painting".
Sulpicia was the wife of Quintus Fulvius Flaccus and earned everlasting fame when she was determined to be the most chaste of all the Roman matrons.
The Temple of Artemis or Artemision, also known as the Temple of Diana, was a Greek temple dedicated to an ancient, local form of the goddess Artemis. It was located in Ephesus. By 401 AD it had been ruined or destroyed. Only foundations and fragments of the last temple remain at the site.
Peiraikos, or Piraeicus or Peiraeicus, was an Ancient Greek painter of uncertain date and location. He was the chief representative of what is called rhopography (ῥοπογραφία), or the painting of petty subjects, such as still-life. None of his work is known to have survived and he is known only from a brief discussion by the Latin author Pliny the Elder. Pliny's passage comes in the middle of his discussion of painting in Book XXXV of his Natural History, completed about 78 AD:
It is well to add an account of the artists who won fame with the brush in painting smaller pictures. Amongst them was Peiraikos. In mastery of his art but few take rank above him, yet by his choice of a path he has perhaps marred his own success, for he followed a humble line, winning however the highest glory that it had to bring. He painted barbers' shops, cobblers' stalls, asses, eatables and similar subjects, earning for himself the name of rhyparographos [painter of dirt/low things]. In these subjects he could give consummate pleasure, selling them for more than other artists received for their large pictures.
Mastaura, was an ancient Greek town near Dereağzı, Nazilli in northern Caria, not to be confused with ancient Mastaura (Lycia).
Cleanthes was an ancient painter of Corinth, who was mentioned among the inventors of that art by Pliny the Elder and Athenagoras of Athens.
Aristarete or Aristareta was an ancient Greek painter. Little is known about her, including where and when she lived.
Aristoclides was a painter mentioned by Pliny the Elder as one of those who deserved to be ranked next to the "masters" in their art. His age and country are unknown. He painted the temple of Apollo at Delphi. It is said that he was famous before the public of Athens, and attracted many great artists to himself.
Calypso, also known as Kalypso, was a supposed Ancient Greek painter who lived in the 3rd century BC. She is known from a mention in Pliny the Elder's Natural History along with several other prominent female painters.
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