Black-figure vase painting (image making)

Technique used on Ancient Greek pottery in which black decoration appears silhouetted on a red ground through painting and a two-stage firing process. In the process, a refined slip of clay, iron oxide, wood ash, and rain water was used to paint decorations on the object. Details were incised into the black figures or applied in purple or white pigment. It developed in Corinth ca. 720 BCE; the technique was later replaced by the more sophisticated red-figure vase painting.