The Enigmatic Maestro of Corinthian Black Figure The history of ancient Greek ceramic art is often written through the shadows of anonymous masters, and few figures loom as large yet remain as mysterious as the painter of Palermo 489. Operating in the vibrant, experimental atmosphere of Corinth, Greece, between approximately 640 and 625 BC, this artist existed during a transformative epoch. It was a time when the decorative, exotic flourishes of the Orientalizing period were beginning to coalesce into the disciplined, narrative power of the black-figure technique. While his true name has bee…