The Tarporley Painter was an Apulian

Apulia

Apulia is a region in Southern Italy bordering the Adriatic Sea in the east, the Ionian Sea to the southeast, and the Strait of Òtranto and Gulf of Taranto in the south. Its most southern portion, known as Salento peninsula, forms a high heel on the "boot" of Italy. The region comprises , and...

 red-figure

Red-figure pottery

Red-figure vase painting is one of the most important styles of figural Greek vase painting. It developed in Athens around 530 BC and remained in use until the late 3rd century BC. It replaced the previously dominant style of Black-figure vase painting within a few decades...

 vase painter

Apulian vase painting

Apulian vase painting was the leading South Italian vase painting tradition between 430 and 300 BC. Of the circa 20,000 surviving specimens of Italian red-figure vases, about half are from Apulian production, while the rest are from the four other centres of production, Paestum, Campania, Lucania...

. His works date to the first quarter of the 4th century BC. The Tarporley Painter is his period's most important representative of the so-called "Plain Style". He is considered to have been the pupil and successor of the Sisyphus Painter

Sisyphus Painter

The Sisyphus Painter was an Apulian red-figure vase painter. His works are dated to the last two decades of the fifth century and the very early fourth century BC....

, as indicated by his elegant fine-limbed figures and the solemn facial expressions of his woman and cloaked youths. He painted garments in a less balanced style then the Sisyphus Painter. His heads are often oval and lean forwards. The spaces between his figures are often filled with flowers, branches or vines. Over time, his drawing style becomes more fluid, but also less precise. He painted especially on bell krater

Krater

A krater was a large vase used to mix wine and water in Ancient Greece.-Form and function:...

s, on which he often depicted dionysiac themes and theatrical scenes. His work includes the first known phlyax

Phlyax play

A Phlyax play , also known as a hilarotragedy, was a burlesque dramatic form that developed in the Greek colonies of Magna Graecia in the 4th century BCE. Its name derives from the Phlyakes or “Gossip Players” in Doric Greek...

 vase, showing the punishment of a thief, accompanied by a metric verse inscription. Mythological scenes by him are rare. There appears to be an especially close relationship between the work of the Tarporley Painter and that of the Dolon Painter, perhaps they cooperated directly for some time. His succession is represented by three separate schools, each clearly influenced by him. The most important painter of the first is the Schiller Painter, of the second the Hoppin Painter and of the third the Painter of Karlsruhe B9 and the Dijon Painter.