Who was interested in Sculptors Signatures?
IG i3 1380, base for the grave-stele of Lampito, with signature of the sculptor Endoios integrated into the funerary inscription, late 6th century BC Beyond their laconicism, sculptors’ signatures have always been a puzzle for art historians and epigraphists because of their exceptional character; most ancient statues were not signed. One is entitled to wonder why a sculptor’s name was sometimes cut on a statue or on its base and who was interested in reading it. The first sculptors’ signatures appeared during the second part of the seventh century BC, and their use is not interrupted until at least the fourth century AD. We cannot expect that the same reasons will cause the same effects over such a long period. The fact that the “sculptor’s signature” was initially very often integrated into an epigram, as in the case of the grave-stele for Lampito, IG i3 1380, illustrated above, and progressively, through the fifth and fourth century, detached itself and became an autonomous piece of
