Copy of the Portland Vase

Object Name: 
Copy of the Portland Vase

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Object Name: 
Copy of the Portland Vase
Place Made: 
Accession Number: 
92.3.79
Dimensions: 
Overall H: 28 cm
Location: 
Not on Display
Date: 
1862
Credit Line: 
Purchased with donated funds from the Clara S. Peck Endowment Fund
Web Description: 
Zach engraved two almost identical versions of the Portland Vase. (The other one is in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter, England.)
Department: 
Provenance: 
Rakow, Mrs. Leonard S. (d. 1992), Former Collection
Rakow, Dr. Leonard S., Former Collection
Primary Description: 
Translucent deep blue over colorless; blown, cased; engraved. Jar with two handles. Rim everted, with rounded lip; cylindrical neck curving smoothly out to shoulder, which has rounded profile; body tapers toward bottom; base flat. Handles star at neck with lozenge-shaped plates; vertical ridge on each outer surface, which has seven overlapping V-shaped sections; lower ends attached to blue overlay at shoulder. Body decorated with broad figured frieze extending from level of lower handle attachments almost to lowest surviving part of body and divided into two equal parts (sides I and II) by masks of Pan, which hang by their horns from lower attachments of handles. Each mask has flowing locks, bushy mustache, shaggy beard, eyes with pupils delineated, and open mouth showing teeth. Side I: (A) Naked young man, holding transparent drape in right hand, moves to right in front of two square pillars supporting architrave decorated with dentils and triglyphs, behind which grows small-leaved sapling; his left arm is entwined with right arm of woman (C, below). (B) Eros, holding bow in left hand and torch in his right, flies to right, glancing back to left, ahead of young man. (C) Woman, sitting on low rock with head turned back in profile to left, wears mantle wrapped around her outstretched legs; left hand supports snakelike creature that rises toward her face; right arm is entwined with left arm of young man (A, above). Beyond tree, (D) bearded man stands in three-quarter profile to left, chin on hand, with right foot on pile of stones at base of tree; between him and mask below adjacent handle, another tree. Side II: At left, square pillar surmounted by square capital, beside which (E) young man sits to left on layered rocks with his head turned back to right, naked, but with drape behind him on rocks and across both thighs (For complete description see Notepad: Full Description 1992-12-22)
Venue(s)
J. Paul Getty Museum 2007-10-18 through 2008-01-14
Corning Museum of Glass 2008-02-15 through 2008-05-27
Roman Glass in The Corning Museum of Glass, Volume Three (2003) illustrated, pp. 85-86, #1031; BIB# 58895
Important Acquisitions from the Rakow Collection (1993) illustrated, p. 138, #1, left; BIB# AI32225
The Corning Museum of Glass Annual Report 1992 (1993) illustrated, p. 7, left; BIB# AI96377
The History of the Portland Vase (1990) illustrated, pp. 62-84, esp. 73;
Franz Paul Zach, Nineteenth-Century Bohemian Master Glass Engraver (1983) p. 197, fig. 7b;
New Facts on the Portland Vase and the Wedgwood Portlands (1981) p. 215, fig. 13;