.

Ganymede rolling a hoop and bearing aloft a cockerel - a love gift from Zeus (in pursuit, on obverse of vase). Attic red-figure crater, c. 490 BC; Berlin Painter; Louvre, Paris)

The Berlin Painter (working c. 490s–c. 460s BC) is the pseudonym of an Attic Greek vase-painter who is widely regarded as a rival to the Kleophrades Painter among the most talented vase painters of the early fifth century B.C. (see Pottery of Ancient Greece). The Berlin Painter was named by Sir John Beazley for a large lidded amphora in the Antiken Museum, Berlin (his namepiece)[1]. The Berlin Painter began working in the Late Archaic style and helped develop the Classic style of Attic red-figure pottery. He produced a series of Panathenaic Prize Amphorae.

Europa and Zeus (as a Bull), Image from a 28 cm Attic Red Figure Krater, Berlin Painter , c.500/490 BC, Tarquinnia, Museo Nazionale Tarquiniese, Italy, Inv RC7456

His painted figures are usually isolated or paired without framing devices against a glossy black ground, so integral to the forms of their superbly-made bodies that the wares are thought to have been produced in his shop. Over a long career he trained many younger vase-painters, including, probably, the Achilles Painter.

Many of his valued works were preserved as elite grave goods in the necropoli of Magna Graecia, notably at Vulci, Nola and Locri.

Dionysos, kantharos, Louvre CA2981-2984

Achilles and Ajax playing, Berlin Painter

Satyrs in wineyard, Staatliche Antikensammlungen

Heracles strangling snakes Louvre G192, Berlin Painter

Herakles symposium Louvre G174

Hermes and the Satyr Oreimachos, Berlin Painter c. 490 BC

Footnotes

^ Perseus Project. Berlin F 2160

References

Berlin Painter on-line
The Berlin Painter: Archaeology of the Corpus Present and former whereabouts of the vases attributed to the Berlin Painter.
Perseus Project: "Thirty-three Vases whose Painter is 'Berlin Painter'"
Metropolitan Museum of Art, red-figure amphora, c 490 BCE Figure of a rhapsode and a judge.
M. Robertson, The Art of Vase-painting in Classical Athens (Cambridge, 1992)
Andrew J. Clark, Maya Elston, Mary Louise Hart

, Understanding Greek Vases: A Guide to Terms, Styles, and Techniques (Getty Museum Publications 2002)

Antikenmuseum, Basel: Lidded Amphora Figure of Athena
Altes Museum, Berlin: Amphora attributed to the Berlin Painter
(Donna Carol Kurtz, editor) The Berlin Painter : Drawings by Sir John Beazley (Oxford Monographs on Classical Archaeology) 1983

List of Greek Vase Painters

Greek Vase Painters (Category)

Ancient Greek Pottery