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Aristarete

ancient Greek painter

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 19, 2026
Entity authorityQ664627
Source-derived summary

Aristarete or Aristareta (Ancient Greek: Ἀρισταρέτη) was an ancient Greek painter. Little is known about her, including where and when she lived.

Although none of her works are known to be extant, Pliny the Elder's Natural History mentions her work depicting Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine. Pliny includes Aristarete in a list of six ancient Greek female artists, among which Timarete, Irene, and Calypso.

Pliny also writes that Aristarete was trained by her father, Nearchos.

Account by Pliny

The standard Teubner edition of Pliny the Elder's Natural History mentions the painter Aristarete in the following passage from the 147th chapter of its 35th book:Pinxere et mulieres: Timarete, Miconis filia, Dianam, quae in tabula Ephesi est antiquissimae picturae; Irene, Cratini pictoris filia et discipula, puellam, quae est Eleusine, Calypso, senem et praestigiatorem Theodorum, Alcisthenen saltatorem; Aristarete, Nearchi filia et discipula, Aesculapium.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Aristarete” is ancient Greek painter. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Aristarete, ancient and Greek, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current 141-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The linked authority record independently contributes the date -0550. For this dossier, Aristarete, ancient and Greek is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “ancient Greek painter” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q664627. VIAF identifies the subject as 96123108. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Aristarete”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Aristarete primary sources, Aristarete archive and Aristarete research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Aristarete”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Aristarete” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.