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Gorgos' Cup: an Essay in Connoisseurship

In 1954 a small red-figured cup was found in the Athenian Agora. Its style of drawing resembles that of one of the greatest Athenian vase-painters—the Berlin Painter, active shortly before 500 BC to around 460 BC. Any of his vases, newly discovered, excites scholarly interest; if the vase is possibly his earliest, and a shape which he is not known previously to have decorated, interest is very great. Martin Robertson, to whom this article is affectionately dedicated, argued persuasively for an attribution of the cup to the Berlin Painter. Sir John Beazley agreed, although with reservations. The cup has continued to attract attention and provoke controversy: no one denies a close connection with the Berlin Painter but some feel that the stylistic similarities are not sufficiently compelling to attribute the cup firmly to his hand. The cup is, therefore, an excellent example of the difficulties inherent in connoisseurship. My interest in the Berlin Painter was deepened by preparing for publication drawing (PLATES Vld, Vllc–d) which Beazley ‘traced’ off more than fifty of the artist's vases. The Berlin Painter (Oxford 1983) presents Beazley's Berlin Painter. It attempts to show how Beazley looked at the painter's vases and what criteria he valued most highly in their attribution; it does not enter into the controversy over Gorgos' cup or other vases of the artist's earliest years whose attributions have been questioned. Elsewhere I discuss connoisseurship in Greek vase-painting; here my purpose is an explanation of method. My ‘conclusion’—that the Berlin Painter probably did not decorate Gorgos' cup—is relatively unimportant.