Who were the great painters of classical Greece and why we know so little about them

Pintura de Joseph Wright of Derby — Photo foot, Joseph Wright of Derby painting of the 18th century in which the “young Corinthian” is portrayed.

- Author, Marta Carrasco Ferrer
- Author's title, The Conversation*
August 3, 2025

When addressing the problem of women artists throughout history, so far a very poor approach has predominated: to start talking for the Middle Ages.

Thus, it has been said that the first artist of Europe was the “painter and servant of God” Ende, who signed around 970, together with the painter Emeterio, the miniatures of the Blessed of Liébana preserved in the Girona Cathedral. Other nuns of the Middle Ages would mark the following steps, and thus reached Renaissance Italy.

Giorgio Vasari, in the 16th century, dedicated two sections, in his study on the lives of illustrious artists, to the most creative women he knew: it gives data about an interesting sculptor and recorder, propercia de Rossi, and, above all, of a brilliant painter, Sofonisba Anguissola, the great portraitist of Felipe II. From that point, the path of painting in the hands of women would be traced until today.

However, a few years ago I raised, along with my colleague Miguel Ángel Elvira, a doubt: Is there no painters in ancient times? We study the problem and, over time, we get to publish a brief book entitled “Women artists of ancient Greece”.

A paragraph in history

Already the Greek and Romans who wrote about Art warned the existence of painters: Plinio, specifically, anticipated centuries to Vasari and gathered them in a paragraph in their natural history.

“Women have also painted: Timaree, Micón's daughter, (represented) a target, which is in a table of ephes Esculapio

Laia de Círtico, (which remained) always virgin, was in Rome when M. Varrón was young and painted, both with a brush and a palette on ivory, portraits, particularly women; In Naples (he made, or are) an old woman in a large table, and her self -portrait next to a mirror. No one had such a fast hand when painting, and yet its artistic value was so much, that its quote exceeded in a lot those of Sópolis and Dionisio, the most famous portraitist painters of their time, whose paintings fill Pinacoteca. She was also a painter one Olympias, of which she only remembers that she had an autobile as a disciple. “

However, its point of view does not seem sufficient, which is limited to the Hellenistic period. It is possible to begin the review of the creators in the field of mythology that, although they are not, as such, “real”, they do serve as a reference.

The mythological origins

Recorded — Photo foot, Penelope spent months and months embroidering a cloth – who weaning every night – to avoid having to choose a new husband during the infinite absence of her husband Ulysses.

There in Olympus, in time immemorial, the gods Athena and Hefesto distributed the dominance of the arts. The second, protecting himself in the strength of his muscles, stayed with the sculpture and work of the metal. The first, smarter, Lady of the Mycenaean palaces, the thorough and creative work that the ladies and slaves in their rooms were reserved: theirs would be the fabric, embroidery, ivory sizes and paint that covered the walls.

After the time, epic poetry would delve into such a suggestive division, firmly based, on the other hand, in a patriarchal mentality. Thus legends arose such as that of the unfortunate Filomela, who embroidered in a tapestry the crimes of Tereo, the infamous monarch who had violated her and torn her tongue so she could not accuse her of her sister procne.

At that time the image of the great “homeric” weavers was also developed: Helena, who entertained himself in Troy, while Paris faced the Greek heroes, embroidering precisely those fighting; And, above all, Penelope, a decade of conjugal fidelity, which spent months and months embroidering a cloth – which we weeding every night – to avoid having to choose a new husband during the infinite absence of her husband Ulysses.

In the following centuries, the women continued delivered to their embroidery, and created some as spectacular as the “peples of Athena”, robes made by whole teams of young girls in a room of the part. His task was respected by all, and gave rise to a late legend, Aracne's, in which a weaver believed herself capable of being better than Athena herself. It was defeated – how could a mortal compare to a goddess? -, but his action would become, with the passage of the centuries, in the proclamation and timbre of the artists: Velázquez himself would represent this story in the spinnings.

The “true” painters

The last part of our study neglects the tissues and already enters the painting on table, the “true” for ancient traders, because there are indisputable literary references. We started from the moment when certain women began to feel able to get out of their domestic looms to enter their parents' workshops and work with them.

The first artist who has news is, in fact, an anonymous author of the seventh century known as “the young Corinthia”, invented the genre of the portrait: simply drew his beloved profile to maintain his memory. More than a century later, we discovered, in the painting of a glass, a woman painter in a vessel workshop.

Photo foot, The spinnings or Aracne's fable, Velázquez. National Prado Museum

However, these are still very isolated figures: the true story of women Greek painters – among which are remembered by Pliny – is located after Alejandro's reign. Then Helena La Egyptian, Timaree, Irene de Athens, Anaxandra, Arister, among others, who formed with their parents, all of them known painters lived. Through thorough studies, we have tried to integrate them into their context, although – let's confess – most have not managed to attribute concrete works, not even through copies.

Yes, we can imagine the mastery of the Great Iaia of Cicico, a brilliant artist of the 1st century at its time a portrait of a woman in mosaic, preserved in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, which can be considered the iconographic or compositional starting point of the “portraits of El Fayum”, which have reached hundreds in the Nile Valley.

And it has been easier for us to approach their figures, and those of other painters of their time, through paintings found in Pompeya, Herculano or the distant Egypt. Several of the frescoes discovered in the cities of Vesubio show the activity of women artists in their workshops.

The painter who interested Plinio most was Iaia. He was fascinated by his virginity and preference for working with female models. In the author's opinion, if she always remained Doncella was not for religious reasons, but “because of the sole integrity of her mind.” It was “the strength of her modesty” that moved her away from male models.

We can smile at such naivety, but let's not forget that this criterion served as a theoretical basis, during the Modern Age, to separate artists from heroic and mythological themes, so prodigal in anatomies.

*Marta Carrasco Ferrer is a professor of Art and Humanities History, Camilo José Cela University, Spain.