These discoveries prompted Prince Lucien Bonaparte to revive the theory of Etruscan origin, in which he was supported by D'Amatis and De Fea. It is probable that all three were animated more by patriotic motives than by intellectual conviction. At any rate their arguments appealed but little to scholars, although not a few inclined to take a middle course, and maintained that there existed, not only in Etruria but also in Southern Italy, various local centres of manufacture under Greek superintendence and in close connection with Athens and her influences. These ideas were upheld by Gerhard, Welcker, the Duc de Luynes, and Ch. Lenormant. But the preponderating arguments were to be found on the other side, from Kramer (1837), who attributed all vases but those of the Decadence to an Attic origin, O. Müller, who limited this to the finer examples from Vulci, and Raoul-Rochette, who pinned his faith to Sicily, to Otto Jahn[34], who may be said to have founded the modern comparative study of Greek ceramics on its present basis (1854). Jahn pronounced decisively for the Greek origin of all but the later fabrics, and his principles have been adopted by all succeeding archaeologists, with the exception of Brunn, and one or two of the latter’s disciples, who have swung back to the Italian theory in some respects. Up to his time all had been in chaos, and each writer worked on his own particular line without regard to others, both as regards the origin of the vases and the subjects depicted thereon; but Jahn, in his epoch-making catalogue of the vases at Munich, was the first to make a serious and scientific attempt to reduce the chaos to order, not only by adopting a rational system of interpretation, but by systematising and reducing to one common denominator all previous contributions to knowledge. We may say that the study of Greek vases has passed through three main stages: (1) Artistic; (2) Epexegetic; (3) Historical. (1) =Artistic= (1690—1770).—In the first stage, as we have seen, the artistic merit of the vases and the aim of producing a pretty picture were alone regarded. Hence, too, arose the fashion of making copies of Greek vases, and many specimens were produced by Wedgwood[35], bearing, however, no more than a superficial likeness to the originals. (2) =Epexegetic= (1770—1854).—In the second stage it seems to have been suddenly discovered that the figures on the vases were not mere meaningless groups, like the Watteau shepherds and shepherdesses on Dresden china, and many strange theories were at first promulgated as to the purposes for which the vases were made and the subjects thereon depicted. Three main lines of interpretation seem to have been adopted by the writers of this period:—