The Berlin Painter and His World : Athenian Vase-Painting in the Early Fifth Century B.C.

The Berlin Painter was the name given by British classicist and art historian Sir John Beazley to an otherwise anonymous Athenian red-figure vase-painter. The artist's long career extended from about 505 B.C. well into the 460s, and his elegant renderings of daily life and mythological stories offer invaluable insight into the social, political, religious, and artistic workings of early 5th-century Athens. Since the first published identification of the artist in 1911, the Berlin Painter's oeuvre has grown to some 330 works, both complete pots and fragments, making him one of the best-known artists of his kind. This lavishly illustrated publication features nine essays by leading scholars who explore the artist's work, milieu, influence, and legacy, as well as the role of connoisseurship in art-historical scholarship. With an updated catalogue raisonne that includes many newly attributed works, it is the definitive book on this seminal artist.