The Portland Vase

Thomas Windus, A new elucidation of the subjects on the celebrated Portland vase: formerly called the Barberini: and the sarcophagus in which it was discovered (London, 1845)

The Portland Vase, a glass cameo vessel dated to the late first century B.C.E., belonged to the Barberini collection of antiquities in Rome in the seventeenth century. In the late eighteenth century, it was presented to the Duchess of Portland and, in 1810 it was donated to the British Museum. This image is an example of the technological advances of the early nineteenth century, being one of the first chromolithographic reproductions of its time. The book in which this image appears was of even greater value to scholars than originally foreseen, since the vase was smashed by a drunken man days before the volume’s publication. At the end of the publication, the author, Thomas Windus, condemns the man who destroyed the vessel, comparing his actions to the desecration of a temple. There are numerous interpretations of the mythological scenes depicted on the vase. Recently, some scholars have questioned the vases’s authenticity, arguing that it was manufactured in the sixteenth century.