The Portland Vase

Title: The Portland Vase
Repository: British Museum
Alternative: Peleus encouraged by goddess with sea dragon The Portland Vase Gem 4036
Creator: unknown
Photographer: Lowenstam, Steven
Creator Display: unknown Ancient Roman (artist)
Description: Amphora in translucent dark cobalt blue and opaque white cameo glass. The cylindrical neck widens out to a sloping shoulder and ovoid body, whose squatness is emphasized by the lack of a foot. Everted mouth with rounded rim which is cut very unevenly on the upper side so that it is not horizontal; below this the neck curves out smoothly to the carination of the shoulder. Handles from the centre of the neck to the shoulder. The disc base (1945.9-27.2) is discussed separately. A separate Registration Number (1948.10-18.1) was assigned to approximately forty small fragments, most of which were incorporated during the most recent restoration. Broken and mended; the bottom is missing, and the underside of the vessel has been roughly trimmed and the edge left grozed, perhaps in antiquity. Slight iridescence in patches all over the inside of the vessel, slight pitting on exterior and red streaks and bubbles in the blue glass. Grinding all over the inside of the vessel, probably achieved by a filling of grit. The white design may have been reworked after its rediscovery in the sixteenth century. The inside of the rim is decorated with asymmetrical grooves either side of a ridge. The handles are vertically ridged on the outside and cut in v-shaped wedge sections. Figured design carved in the white glass, divided into two portions by a bearded and perhaps horned head below the lower attachment of each handle. One group of four persons shows a young man emerging from a rustic shrine behind which grows a shrub. His right arm held behind him clasps his cloak that is draped around the pillar of the shrine; his left arm stretched before him clasps the right arm of a half-draped lady seated on the ground turning back towards him and caressing a serpent-like creature that rises up towards her face. Eros flies to the right, above the lady, holding a bow in the left hand, a torch in his right. To the right stands a bearded man resting his chin on his right arm that itself rests on his right bent knee, the foot supported by a ledge below a tree that spreads out its branches; behind him is another tree. On the other side, at the extreme left, is a rectangular column beside which is a young man seated to the left on a rock shown in a series of steps with his head turned back towards a half-draped girl reclining to the right on the same rock with her right arm raised up to her head that is turned back to look towards the floor behind her; from her left hand hangs a burning torch. To her right, seated to the right on another rock and looking back towards the scene, sits another half-draped girl holding a sceptre in her left hand. The scene is closed by the shrub that grows from the back of the rustic shrine described above. --The British Museum Tatton-Brown, Veronica A; Gudenrath, W; Roberts, Paul C; Whitehouse, D, Roman Cameo Glass, Vol. II, London, BMP, 2007; Walters, H B, Catalogue of Engraved Gems & Cameos, Greek, Etruscan & Roman in the British Museum, London, BMP, 1926; Jenkins, Ian; Sloan, Kim, Vases and Volcanoes - Sir William Hamilton and his collection, London, BMP, 1996; Tait, Hugh (editor), Five Thousand Years of Glass, London, BMP, 1991
View: Front
Coverage: Rome, Lazio, Italy (creation) Monte del Grano, Rome, Lazio, Italy (discovery)
Temporal: ca. 1-25 CE
Subject: Peleus Lifts Thetis Trojan Myth, Priorto, Iliad
Style Period: Imperial (Roman)
Work Type: amphorae (storage vessels)
Date: 0001/0025
Identifier: Lowenstam_VRC_00272
Item Locator: Box 1, Section 15
Rights: In Copyright
Dc Rights Holder: University of Oregon, Department of Classics
Local Collection Name: Steven Lowenstam Collection
Type: Image
Format: image/tiff
Measurements: Height: 24.5 cm Diameter: 17.7 cm (maximum) Diameter: 9.3 cm (mouth) Height: 9.6 cm (handle) Width: 1.8 cm (handle)
Material: glass | carved; blown
Set: Lowenstam Collection of Ancient Western Art and Archaeology
Primary Set: Lowenstam Collection of Ancient Western Art and Archaeology
Institution: University of Oregon
Cultural Context: Roman (ancient Italian culture or period)
Id Current Repository: 1945,0927.1