Michael Padgett, The Harrow Painter, with a Note on the Geras Painter

Introduction

The Harrow Painter was named by J. D. Beazley after an oinochoe at Harrow school with a picture of a handsome boy holding a hoop.¹ Along with the Kleophrades Painter, the artist was the subject of one of Beazley's earliest articles,² in which he attributed 39 vases to this "minor" pot-painter, whom he later called "a poorly-equipped painter whose ordinary employment was daubing cheap neck-amphorae and column-kraters with dull and ill-drawn forms."³ These are harsh words, though not wholly inaccurate, for although he has been justly called "more than ordinarily competent,"⁴ the Harrow Painter was indeed a minor talent, not withstanding the undeniable charm of some of his works. If, however, one looks beyond the quality of his line and his relatively low standing in the artistic pantheon, one discovers in him many elements of interest and more than a few delightful pictures.