The
Portland Vase is a
RomanRoman glass objects have been recovered across the Roman Empire in domestic, industrial and funerary contexts. Glass was used primarily for the production of vessels, although mosaic tiles and window glass were also produced. Roman glass production developed from Hellenistic technical traditions,...
cameo glassCameo glass is a luxury form of glass art produced by etching and carving through fused layers of differently coloured glass to produce designs, usually with white opaque glass figures and motifs on a dark coloured background...
vase, currently dated to 5-25AD, which served as an inspiration to many glass and
porcelainPorcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between and...
makers from about the beginning of the 18th century onwards. Since 1945 the vase has belonged to the
British MuseumThe British Museum is a museum of human history and culture situated in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from...
in
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
(reference - GR 1945,0927.1) ; on display in Room 70, Rome: City & Empire).
The vase is about 25 centimetres high and 56 in circumference. It is made of violet-blue glass, and surrounded with a single continuous white glass cameo depicting seven figures (humans and gods).
On the bottom was a cameo glass disc, also in blue and white, showing a head, presumed to be of
ParisParis , the son of Priam, king of Troy, appears in a number of Greek legends. Probably the best-known was his elopement with Helen, queen of Sparta, this being one of the immediate causes of the Trojan War...
or
PriamIn Greek mythology, Priam was the king of Troy during the Trojan War and youngest son of Laomedon. Modern scholars derive his name from the Luwian compound Priimuua, which means "exceptionally courageous"....
on the basis of the
Phrygian capThe Phrygian cap is a soft, red, conical cap with the top pulled forward, worn in antiquity by the inhabitants of Phrygia, a region of central Anatolia...
it wears. This roundel clearly does not belong to the vase, and has been displayed separately since 1845. It may have been added to mend a break in antiquity or after, or the result of a conversion from an original
amphoraAn amphora is a type of ceramic vase with two handles and a long neck narrower than the body. The word amphora is Latin, derived from the Greek amphoreus , an abbreviation of amphiphoreus , a compound word combining amphi- plus phoreus , from pherein , referring to...
form (paralleled by a similar blue-glass cameo vessel from
PompeiiPompeii is a ruined and partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei...
) - it was definitely attached to the bottom from at least 1826.
Iconography
The meaning of the images on the vase is unclear and controversial. Interpretations of the portrayals have included that of a marine setting (due to the presence of a ketos or sea-snake), and of a marriage theme/context (i.e. as a wedding gift). Many scholars (even
Charles TowneleyCharles Townley or Towneley , English antiquary and collector of marbles, was born at Towneley, the family seat, near Burnley in Lancashire, on the 1st of October 1737...
) have concluded that the figures do not fit into a single iconographic set.
Some interpretations of the 2 main scenes are:
| Scene 1 |
Scene 2 |
The story of the Emperor AugustusGaius Julius Caesar Augustus was the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. [These are the contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian after 45 BC...]
' supposed siring by the god Apollo in the form of a snake |
A divinatory dream by HecubaHecuba was a queen in Greek mythology, the wife of King Priam of Troy, with whom she had 19 children. The most famous of her children was Hector of Troy...
that the Judgement of ParisThe Judgement of Paris is a story from Greek mythology, which was one of the events that led up to the Trojan War and to the foundation of Rome.-Sources of the episode:...
would lead to the destruction of TroyTroy is a legendary city and center of the Trojan War, as described in the Epic Cycle and especially in the Iliad, one of the two epic poems attributed to Homer...
|
| Peleus In Greek mythology, Pēleús was a hero who was already known to Homer. Peleus was the son of Aeacus, king of the island of Aegina, and Endeïs, the oread of Mount Pelion in Thessaly; he became the father of Achilles...
and ThetisSilver-footed Thetis , disposer or "placer" , is encountered in Greek mythology mostly as a sea nymph, one of the fifty Nereids, daughters of the ancient one of the seas with shape-shifting abilities who survives in the historical vestiges of most later Greek myths as Proteus Silver-footed Thetis...
, maritime deities |
Ariadne Ariadne , in Greek mythology , was daughter of King Minos of Crete and his queen, Pasiphaë, daughter of Helios, the Sun-titan...
languishing on Naxos |
The younger man is Mark AntonyMarcus Antonius , known in English as Mark Antony, was a Roman politician and General. He was an important supporter and the loyal friend of Gaius Julius Caesar as a military commander and administrator, being Caesar's second cousin, once removed, by his mother Julia Antonia...
being lured by the wiles of the reclining woman (who is Cleopatra, with the snake being an aspAsp may refer to:Snakes:* Asp , an archaic term for a venomous snake.* Vipera aspis, a venomous viper found in Europe.* Cerastes cerastes, a venomous viper found in the Sahara desert....
) into losing his manly romanitasRomanitas refers to an immiscibly Latin culture of the Roman Empire. Cicero contributed much to the notion.Romanitas was not a word used in ancient times, but it is used by modern writers to express the ideals which inspired the Roman state. It meant a great many things, but in short it meant what...
and becoming decadent, with the bearded elder male figure being his mythical ancestor AntonAnton is a given name in many European languages. It is a variant of the same root as Antonius or Anthony.- People :*Anton Apriantono, Indonesian politician*Anton Ažbe, Slovenian painter*Anton Chekhov, Russian writer...
looking on. |
The woman languishing is Octavia MinorOctavia Minor , also known as Octavia the Younger or simply Octavia, was the sister of the first Roman Emperor, Augustus , half sister of Octavia Major, and fourth wife of Mark Antony....
, abandoned by Mark Antony, between her brother Augustus (left, as a god, as on the contemporary Sword of Tiberius http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/gr/t/the_sword_of_tiberius.aspx) and Venus GenetrixVenus Genetrix may be:*An epithet of the goddess Venus*Venus Genetrix , the name for a type of sculptural depiction of the goddess thought to represent her under this epithet....
, the ancestor of Augustus and Octavia's Julian gensJulius is the nomen of the gens Julia, an important patrician family of ancient Rome supposed to have descended from Julus, and thus from the goddess Venus....
. |
Manufacture
Based on the scenes and the style of the work, the Portland Vase is generally believed to have been made in Rome some time between 30 BC and 20 BC. Dr Jerome Eisenberg has argued in
MINERVA magazineMinerva is the Roman goddess of crafts and wisdom, but the name may also refer to:-People:* Josephine Blatt aka Minerva , strongwoman* Minerva Urecal , American film and television actress...
that the vase was produced in the 16th Century AD and not antiquity, because the iconography is incoherent, but this theory has not been widely accepted.
Cameo-glass vessels were probably all made within about two generations as experiments when the blowing technique (discovered in about 50 BC) was still in its infancy. Recent research has shown that the Portland vase, like the majority of cameo-glass vessels, was made by the dip-overlay method, whereby an elongated bubble of glass was partially dipped into a crucible (fire-resistant container) of white glass, before the two were blown together. After cooling the white layer was cut away to form the design.
The work towards making a 19th century copy proved to be incredibly painstaking, and based on this it is believed that the Portland Vase must have taken its original artisan no less than two years to produce.
The cutting was probably performed by a skilled gem-cutter
http://www.rosemarie-lierke.de/English/Cameo_glass/cameo_glass.html. It is believed that the cutter may have been Dioskourides, as gems cut by him of a similar period and signed by him, (Vollenweider 1966, see
Gem in the collection of the
Duke of DevonshireDuke of Devonshire is a title in the Peerage of England held by members of the aristocratic Cavendish family. This branch of the Cavendish family has been one of the richest and most influential aristocratic families in England since the 16th century, and have been rivalled in political influence...
"Diomedes stealing the Palladium"), are extant. This is confirmed by The Corning Museum in their 190 page study of the vase-see above.)
Discovery
Legend has it that it was discovered by Fabrizio Lazzaro in the sepulchre of the Emperor
Alexander SeverusMarcus Aurelius Severus Alexander , commonly called Alexander Severus, was the last Roman emperor of the Severan dynasty...
, at Monte del Grano near
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
, and excavated some time around 1582.
The first possible historical reference to the vase is in a 1601 letter from the French scholar
Nicolas Claude Fabri de PeirescNicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc was a French astronomer, antiquary and savant who maintained a wide correspondence with scientists and was a successful organizer of scientific inquiry...
to the painter
Peter Paul RubensSir Peter Paul Rubens was a prolific seventeenth-century Flemish Baroque painter, and a proponent of an exuberant Baroque style that emphasized movement, color, and sensuality...
, where it is recorded as in the collection of Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte in Italy. It then passed to the
BarberiniThe Barberini are a family of the Italian nobility that rose to prominence in 17th century Rome. Their influence peaked with the election of Cardinal Maffeo Barberini to the papal throne in 1623, as Pope Urban VIII...
family collection (which also included sculptures such as the
Barberini FaunThe life-sizemarble statue known as the Barberini Faun or Drunken Satyr is located in the Glyptothek in Munich, Germany. A Faun is the Roman equivalent of a Greek Satyr. In Greek mythology, satyrs were human-like male woodland spirits with several animal features, often a goat-like tail, hooves,...
and Barberini Apollo) where it remained for some two hundred years, being one of the treasures of Maffeo Berberini, later
Pope Urban VIIIPope Urban VIII , born Maffeo Barberini, was Pope from 1623 to 1644. He was the last Pope to expand the papal territory by force of arms, and was a prominent patron of the arts and reformer of Church missions...
(1623-1644).
1778 to present
Sir
William HamiltonSir William Hamilton, KB was a Scottish diplomat, antiquarian, archaeologist and vulcanologist.Hamilton was the fourth son of Lord Archibald Hamilton, governor of Jamaica. He was commissioned into the 3rd Foot Guards in 1747 and was promoted Lieutenant in 1753...
, British ambassador in Naples, purchased it in 1778 from James Byres. Byres, a Scottish art dealer, had acquired it after it was sold by Donna Cornelia Barberini-Colonna, Princess of Palestrina. She had inherited the vase from the Barberini family. Hamilton brought it to England on his next leave, after the death of his first wife, Catherine. In 1784, with the assistance of his niece, Mary, he arranged a private sale to Margaret Cavendish-Harley, widow of
William Bentinck, 2nd Duke of PortlandWilliam Bentinck, 2nd Duke of Portland KG , styled Viscount Woodstock from 1709 to 1715 and Marquess of Titchfield from 1715 to 1726, was a British peer....
and so dowager Duchess of Portland
http://www.harleygallery.co.uk/event.php?pg_id=3&range=0. She passed it to her son
William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of PortlandWilliam Henry Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland PC , was a British Whig and Tory statesman, Chancellor of the University of Oxford and Prime Minister. He was known before 1762 by the courtesy title Marquess of Titchfield. He held a title of every degree of British nobility - that of Duke,...
in 1786.
The 3rd Duke loaned the original vase to
Josiah WedgwoodJosiah Wedgwood was an English potter, credited with the industrialization of the manufacture of pottery. A prominent abolitionist, Wedgwood is remembered for his "Am I Not A Man And A Brother?" anti-slavery medallion. He was a member of the Darwin-Wedgwood family...
(see below) and then to the British Museum for safe-keeping, at which point it was dubbed the "Portland Vase". It was deposited there permanently by
the fourth DukeWilliam Henry Cavendish Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck, 4th Duke of Portland PC, FRS, FSA , styled Marquess of Titchfield until 1809, was a British politician who served in various positions in the governments of George Canning and Lord Goderich.-Background and education:Portland was the eldest son of...
in 1810, after a friend of his broke its base. The original Roman vase has remained in the British Museum ever since 1810, apart from three years (1929-32) when
William Cavendish-Bentinck, 6th Duke of PortlandWilliam John Arthur Charles James Cavendish-Bentinck, 6th Duke of Portland KG GCVO PC TD , was a British Conservative politician.-Background:...
put it up for sale at
Christie'sChristie's is a leading art business and a fine arts auction house.- History :The official company literature states that founder James Christie conducted the first sale in London, England on 5 December 1766, and the earliest auction catalogue the company retains is from December 1766...
.It failed to reach its reserve. It was purchased by the Museum from
William Cavendish-Bentinck, 7th Duke of PortlandWilliam Arthur Henry Cavendish-Bentinck, 7th Duke of Portland KG , known as Marquess of Titchfield until 1943, was a British Conservative politician....
in 1945 with the aid of a bequest from James Rose Vallentin. In 1951
Arthur C. ClarkeSri Lankabhimanya Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, most famous for the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, written in collaboration with director Stanley Kubrick, a collaboration which also produced the film of the same name; and as a...
mentioned the Vase as having been rescued by time travellers from the future just before the destruction of the
EarthEarth is the third planet from the Sun. It is the fifth largest of the eight planets in the solar system, and the largest of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System in terms of diameter, mass and density...
, in his
science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction. It differs from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically-established or scientifically-postulated laws of nature...
short story "All the Time in the World."
Copies
The 3rd Duke lent the vase to
Josiah WedgwoodJosiah Wedgwood was an English potter, credited with the industrialization of the manufacture of pottery. A prominent abolitionist, Wedgwood is remembered for his "Am I Not A Man And A Brother?" anti-slavery medallion. He was a member of the Darwin-Wedgwood family...
, who had already had it described to him as "the finest production of Art that has been brought to England and seems to be the very apex of perfection to which you are endeavouring" by the sculptor
John FlaxmanJohn Flaxman , was an English sculptor and draughtsman.-Early life:He was born in York. His father was also named John, after an ancestor who, according to family tradition, had fought for Parliament at the Battle of Naseby, and afterwards settled as a carrier or farmer in Buckinghamshire...
. Wedgwood devoted four years of painstaking trials at duplicating the vase - not in glass but in
jasperwareJasperware is a form of pottery that has a stoneware body which is either white or colored, which is noted for its matte finish. It was first developed by Josiah Wedgwood and its best known form is the popular blue-and-white ware, but it comes in many other colors...
. He had problems with his copies ranging from cracking and blistering (clearly visible on the example at the
Victoria and Albert MuseumThe Victoria and Albert Museum in London is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects. Named after Prince Albert and Queen Victoria, it was founded in 1852, and has since grown to now cover some and 145 galleries...
) to the reliefs 'lifting' during the firing, and in 1786 he feared that he could never apply the Jasper relief thinly enough to match the glass original's subtlety and delicacy. He finally managed to perfect it in 1790, with the issue of the "first-edition" of copies (with some of this edition, including the V&A one, copying the cameo's delicacy by a combination of undercutting and shading the reliefs in grey), and it marks his last major achievement.
Wedgwood put the first edition on private show between April and May 1790, with that exhibition proving so popular that visitor numbers had to be restricted by only printing 1900 tickets, before going on show in his public London showrooms. (One ticket to the private exhibition, illustrated by Samuel Alkin and printed with 'Admission to see Mr Wedgwood's copy of The Portland Vase, Greek Street, Soho, between 12 o'clock and 5', was bound into the Wedgwood catalogue on view in the
Victoria and Albert MuseumThe Victoria and Albert Museum in London is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects. Named after Prince Albert and Queen Victoria, it was founded in 1852, and has since grown to now cover some and 145 galleries...
's British Galleries.) As well as the V&A copy
(said to have come from the collection of Wedgwood's grandson, the naturalist
Charles DarwinCharles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist who realised and presented compelling evidence that all species of life have evolved over time from common ancestors, through the process he called natural selection...
)
, others are held at the
Fitzwilliam MuseumThe Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge, located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge, England. It receives around 300,000 visitors annually. Admission is free....
(this is the copy sent by Wedgwood to
Erasmus DarwinErasmus Darwin was an English physician who turned down the invitation of George III for him to be a Royal Physician. He was also a natural philosopher, physiologist, abolitionist, inventor and poet...
which his descendants loaned to the Museum in 1963 and later sold to them) and the Department of Prehistory and Europe at the
British MuseumThe British Museum is a museum of human history and culture situated in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from...
.
The Vase also inspired a 19th century competition to duplicate its cameo-work in glass, with Benjamin Richardson offering a £1000 prize to anyone who could achieve that feat. Taking three years, glass maker Philip Pargeter made a copy and John Northwood engraved it, to win the prize. This copy is in the
Corning Museum of GlassThe Corning Museum of Glass, in Corning, New York, explores every facet of glass: its unique place in art, history, culture, science and technology, craft, and design....
in Corning, New York.
The Wedgwood Museum, in Barlaston, Near Stoke-on-Trent, UK, contains a display describing the trials of replicating the vase, and several examples of the early experiments are shown.
Vandalism and reconstruction
- On February 7, 1845, the vase was shattered by William Lloyd, who drunkenly threw a nearby sculpture on top of the case smashing both it and the vase. The vase was pieced together with fair success, though the restorer was unable to replace all of the pieces and thirty-seven small fragments were lost. It appears they had been put into a box and forgotten. In 1948, the keeper Bernard Ashmole received thirty-seven fragments in a box from Mr. Croker of Putney, who did not know what they were. In 1845 Mr. Doubleday, the first restorer, did not know where these fragments went. A colleague had taken these to Mr. Gabb, a box maker, who was asked to make a box with thirty seven compartments, one for each fragment. The colleague died, the box was never collected, Gabb died and his executrix Miss Revees asked Croker to ask the museum if they could identify them. The Duke's descendants finally sold the vase to the museum in 1945.
- By 1948, the restoration appeared aged and it was decided to restore the vase again, but the restorer was only successful in replacing three fragments. The adhesive from this weakened, by 1986 the joints rattled when the vase was gently tapped.
- The third and current reconstruction took place in 1987, when a new generation of conservators assessed the vase's condition during its appearance as the focal piece of an international exhibition of Roman glass and, at the conclusion of the exhibition, it was decided to go ahead with reconstruction and stabilisation. The treatment had scholarly attention and press coverage. The vase was photographed and drawn to record the position of fragments before dismantling; the BBC filmed the conservation process. All previous adhesives had failed, so to find one that would last, conservation scientists at the museum tested many adhesives for long term stability. Finally, an epoxy resin with excellent ageing properties was chosen. Reassembly of the vase was made more difficult as the edges of some fragments were found to have been filed down during the restorations. Nevertheless, all of the fragments were replaced except for a few small splinters. Areas that were still missing were gap-filled with a blue or white resin.
The newly conserved Portland Vase was returned to display. Little sign of the original damage is visible and except for light cleaning, the vase should not require major conservation work for many years.
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