red-figure

or red-fig·ured

[ red-fig-yer ]

adjective

1. pertaining to or designating a style of vase painting developed in Greece in the latter part of the 6th and the 5th centuries b.c., characterized chiefly by figurative representations in red against a black-slip background, details painted in the design, and the introduction of three-dimensional illusion in the rendering of form and space.

Word History and Origins

Origin of red-figure¹

First recorded in 1890–95

Example Sentences

It was a so-called red-figure kylix, a style in which the reddish figures are set against darkened backgrounds and have finer facial details — innovations that introduced greater realism to Greek art.

From New York Times

The items, dating from the seventh century B.C. to the first century A.D., included well-preserved marble statues, red-figure vases, a silver drinking bowl, even rare bronzes.

From New York Times

The sixth-century B.C. red-figure krater had been looted in 1971 from a Cerveteri tomb and sold a year later to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for $1 million, an unprecedented sum at that time.

From New York Times

The Greek objects include a black-figure kylix, a bowl from the sixth century B.C. featuring vignettes of Herakles grappling with the Nemean lion; a red-figure pyxis, a cylindrical container with a lid from the fifth century B.C.; and a ceramic amphora — a tall jar with two handles — from the sixth century B.C.

From New York Times

The museum was also one of several to comply with an Italian campaign in recent decades to reclaim artifacts, returning an Attic red-figure vase it had acquired in 1983.

From New York Times