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Collecting and Connoisseurship: Winchester’s Greek Vases in Context
Interest in Ancient Greek pottery grew in the 1600-1700s, particularly among Italian nobility, clergy and English travellers to Italy. Many Greek vases were found in Italy, where they had been imported or produced in Greek colonies. The serious study and excavation of Greek pottery began in the second half of the 19th century.
By the 1800s, major museums like the Vatican, the Louvre and the British Museum held key Greek pottery collections. Many schools and universities also began to form their own smaller collections for teaching purposes, including Winchester College.
In the early 20th century, the study of Greek vases became focused on art history. Sir John Beazley, specializing in Athenian vases, developed a method to identify individual artists by their distinct styles. He named many painters, including one the ‘Winchester Painter,’ after a vase in the school’s collection.
Winchester started to collect vases in the 1890s, at a time when the curriculum was dominated by the study of classical literature. Like many collections formed in the 19th century, the origin and archaeological context of Winchester’s vases is often uncertain, and many have no recorded history before they came to the school.
Almost 130 years after it first went on display, the collection at Winchester continues to be used for exhibition, teaching and research. The vases are frequently brought out of the cases for close study by pupils from Winchester and other local schools and universities, and pieces in the collection are often published in academic books about the ancient Greek world.
