black-figure

or black·fig·ured

[ blak-fig-yer ]

adjective

1. pertaining to or designating a style of vase painting developed in Greece in the 7th and 6th centuries b.c., chiefly characterized by silhouetted figures painted in black slip on a red clay body, details incised into the design, and a two-dimensional structure of form and space.

Word History and Origins

Origin of black-figure¹

First recorded in 1890–95

Example Sentences

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

One is a black-figure amphora, or vessel, made in Attica in Greece by the potter and painter Exekias in around 530BC.

From The Guardian

The Swiss gallery Cahn has an extraordinary collection of ancient Greek vases, black-figure and red-figure, and Colnaghi has an exquisite still life by the 18th-century Spanish master Luis Egidio Meléndez.

From New York Times

An Etruscan black-figure vase with dolphins, dating to 510-500 B.C., was seized from the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio.

From New York Times

From about 700 B.C. to 530 B.C., black-figure painting was the predominant technique on Greek vases.

From Wall Street Journal