Βlack-figure technique was invented for decorating clay objects. The surface of the object retains its clay colour while the figures and other decorative motifs are made by a clay solution which after the object's firing becomes black. The details of the figures are usually incised whereas other colours, like white and purple, may be used. The use of added white and purple colour for the decoration of the figures (white for the bare parts of the Amazons' bodies and for the middle horse, purple for the Amazons' garments, the horses' manes and the wings of the bird) in combination with the orange background produce a polychrome effect that lends vividness to the picture. The lavish use of added purple and white and the depiction of daemonic creatures (such as the Sphinx) and exotic animals (such as the lions) are typical features of the so-called "Chalcidian" vases, a homogenous group of high-quality black-figure pottery of the second half of the 6th c. BC. Their name derives from the fact that they frequently bear inscriptions in letters of the Chalcidian alphabet. However, "Chalcidian" vases have been found mainly in graves in the West (South Italy, Sicily, Etruria, Massalia [mod. Marseilles], and Emporion in Spain) and most researchers believe that they were produced in one of the Chalcidian colonies in Magna Graecia, e.g. Rhegion, as no such vases have been ever found in Chalcis itself. This particular vase is considered a product of the "Pseudo-Chalcidian" workshop and is attributed to the "Polyphemus Group", a group of black-figure vase-painters whose names are unknown. They were late and poor followers of the first “Chalcidian” painter’s. They are named after an amphora in the British Museum showing the blinding of Polyphemus painted by one of the members of the Group.