Portlandvase

The Portland Vase is a famous, produced in overlay technique Roman amphora from early Augustan period.

Technical: Kameoglas

The actual vessel consists of dark blue glass and was covered with a layer of white glass. In this white layer the images were cut into Kameentechnik. In today's state of the Portland Vase is about 25 cm high; maybe they had originally anticipated an amphora with pointed feet and was subsequently used a bottom plate.

Sculptural

Is on one side of the Portland Vase - as the most common interpretation - Atia to see the superimposed under a fig tree. Apollon approaches her while Artemis is a witness of the scene.

The other side shows the association of Atia with the Apollo snake, but at the same time is to see God in anthropomorphic form. About the scene floats Eros. Quirinus, Romulus observed the procreation of Augustus.

History

Allegedly found in a sarcophagus in the vicinity of Monte del Grano, the vase was first in the collection of the Italian Cardinal Francesco Maria Bourbon Del Monte and came after since 1642 owned by the Barberini and was kept in the Palazzo Barberini. In older representations it is therefore sometimes referred to as Barberinivase. In 1780 it passed into the possession of Scots and was then sold to Sir William Hamilton, the English ambassador in Naples. The next owner was a Duchess of Portland, on the back the current name for the vase, and later their son William Cavendish Bentinck -. Finally, the vessel in 1810 was on loan to the British Museum in London, which was able to acquire the precious item 1945 for sale.

Since 1790, the Portland vase acts as a logo of the porcelain manufacturer Josiah Wedgwood & Sons. From this company it was copied in the form of special stoneware, the so-called Wedgwoodware. John Keats ' Ode on a Grecian Urn is supposed to be inspired by the Portland Vase.

In recent times, the ancient origin of the Portland Vase was denied. The art dealer Jerome M. Eisenberg wrote instead to an artist of the Renaissance; he argued, the art of Kameenschneidens was on the Portland Vase far more developed than in comparable ancient vessels that amphora must therefore be younger than this. In addition, the mythological figures shown are not unequivocally classified; It could for instance whether the inaccurate reproduction of a scene with Mars and Rhea Silvia, the seeing on a sarcophagus in the Villa Mattei in Rome and had been well known since the Renaissance. Finally, the winged, pending Eros is highly unusual for an antique presentation. Eisenberg's thesis was rejected by the experts of the British Museum. However, a precise age determination of the vase can not be made because it would cause to the vascular damage.

Literature ( in chronological order )

  • W. Mancowitz: The Portland Vase and the Wedgwood Copies. London 1952
  • Erika Simon: The Portland Vase. Mainz 1957
  • Denys Haynes: The Portland Vase, London, 1964 ( to review by Hans Mobius, in Gnomon 36, 1964, 636-637 )
  • Karl H. Hunger: The Mystery of the Portland Vase. About the ability to see through a glass-clear augusteisches motif after 2000 years. Munich 1988
  • N. Williams: The Breaking and Remaking of the Portland Vase. London 1989
  • W. Gudenrath, Kenneth Painter, David Whitehouse: The Portland Vase. In: Journal of Glass Studies 32, 1990.
  • Beauty and truth. Scholarly dispute over the Portland Vase in the British Museum. in: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, September 3, 2003
  • Robin Brooks: The Mystery of the Portland Vase. Pressure Worth, London 2004
  • Susan Walker: The Portland Vase. The British Museum Press, London 2004
  • Hans -Christoph von Mosch: The Portland Vase in the light of a sensational discovery. In: Quaderni Ticinesi 39 (2010) pp. 195-222
  • Barberini
  • Work of glass art
  • Roman Art
  • British Museum
  • Container ( single piece)
Cameo (carving) Atia Balba Caesonia
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