mal forms; and the
same principle is involved in the common practice of speaking of the
"neck," "shoulder" or "foot" of a vessel. In the best period the
practice of adding moulded ornaments or of modelling vases in natural
forms took a subsidiary place, but examples occur from time to time,
as in the beautiful _rhyta_ or drinking-horns of the red-figure period
(Plate II., fig. 58), or in smaller details such as are seen in
handles enriched with heads in relief, a favourite practice of the
potter Nicosthenes. In the 4th-century vases of southern Italy the
handles are often much ornamented in this fashion, as in the large
_krateres_, where they are adorned with masks in relief.

The system of moulding whole vases or ornamenting them with designs in
relief taken from moulds really belongs to the decadence of the art,
when imitations of metal were superseding the painted pottery. Even
then it is rare to find whole vases produced from a mould, except in
the case of those in the form of human figures or animals (Plate II.,
figs. 57 and 58), which almost come under the heading of terra-cotta
figures, except for the fact that they are usually painted in the
manner of the vases. But in southern Italy the tendency to imitate
metal led to the popularity of ornaments made separately from moulds
and attached or let in to vases otherwise plain. Vases of this period,
with reeded bodies, must also have been made from moulds, as were a
series of _phialae_ or libation-bowls associated with Cales in
Campania (Plate II., fig. 56), which are known to be direct imitations
of metal.

All or nearly all of these vases are covered with a plain black glaze
or varnish, and painted decoration is rare except in the case of those
moulded in special forms or of a certain class made in Apulia with
opaque colouring laid on the varnish. Some of these plain black vases
of the 4th century are ornamented with _stamped_ patterns made with a
metal punch impressed in the moist clay. This decoration is confined
to simple patterns.

After the vases had been made on the wheel they were dried in the sun
and lightly baked, after which they were ready for varnishing and
painting; it is also probable that the gloss was brought out by a
process of polishing, the surface of the clay being smoothed with a
piece of wood or hard leather. On a vase in Berlin a boy is seen
applying a tool of some k