Burgon Group is the conventional name given to a group of

Attic An attic (sometimes referred to as a '' loft'') is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building; an attic may also be called a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because attics fill the space between the ceiling of the ...

black-figure Black-figure pottery painting, also known as the black-figure style or black-figure ceramic ( grc, , }), is one of the styles of painting on antique Greek vases. It was especially common between the 7th and 5th centuries BCE, although there are ...

vase painters active in the middle third of the sixth century BC. Pinax prothesis Louvre CA255

The group’s name is derived from Thomas Burgon (1787–1858), who supervised the 1813 excavations in

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

, during which the ''Panathenaic prize amphora London B 160'', now on display in the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

, was discovered. The group, recognized by modern scholarship on the basis of stylistic similarities to numerous vases, is particularly important for having produced the earliest known

Panathenaic amphora Panathenaic amphorae were the amphorae, large ceramic vessels, that contained the olive oil given as prizes in the Panathenaic Games. Some were and high. This oil came from the sacred grove of Athena at Akademia. The amphorae which held it had ...

, the

Burgon vase The Burgon vase is the earliest known Panathenaic amphora, dating to around 560 BC, and the name vase for the ancient Greek painter of the Burgon Group. Today it is on display in the British Museum. The 61 cm high vase is short and squat ...

(the group’s

name vase In classical archaeology, a name vase is a specific "vase"In the study of ancient Greek pottery a "vase" is a general term covering all pottery shapes. whose painter's name is unknown but whose workshop style has been identified. The painter is co ...

). As usual for such amphorae, the front image depicts the goddess

Athena Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of ...

and the back shows a two-horse chariot during a race. Another famous piece is a Siana cup with a sowing scene, perhaps of mythological relevance. The Painter of London B 76 is stylistically closely related to the Burgon Group.

Bibliography

John Beazley Sir John Davidson Beazley, (; 13 September 1885 – 6 May 1970) was a British classical archaeologist and art historian, known for his classification of Attic vases by artistic style. He was Professor of Classical Archaeology and Art at the U ...

: ''Attic Black-figure Vase-painters''. Oxford 1956 * John Boardman: ''Schwarzfigurige Vasen aus Athen. Ein Handbuch'', von Zabern, Mainz 1977 ( Kulturgeschichte der Antiken Welt, Vol 1) , p. 40 {{Commons category, Burgon Group Ancient Greek vase painters