DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22421#0146
82
THE BRITISH MUSEUM.
Letter IY.
century in a sarcophagus, in the sepulchral chamber called Monte
del Grano, on the road from Rome to Frascati, and was called,
after the family into whose possession it first came, the Barberini
Vase. About sixty years ago, Sir William Hamilton, who had
become possessed of it, sold it to the Duchess of Portland, from
whom it received its present name of the Portland Vase. In the
year 1810 it was placed by the Duke of Portland in the British
Museum. This very elegantly-shaped vase, which is about ten
inches high, consists of a dark blue glass, over the surface of which
a fine coating of white opaque glass was melted. On this white
coating the figures which were to adorn the vase were drawn,
executed in the manner usual in cameos, and then all that part of
the white coating not included in the outlines of these figures was
ground off, so that they are very strongly relieved by the dark
ground of the blue glass, and produce an effect resembling that of
the onyx cameos. The relief of these figures in the thin coating
is so low, that the general form of the vase is not broken by it,
and all the parts within the external outline are most delicately
modelled on the principle of the reliefs in the Panathenaic
procession, by almost imperceptible elevations and depressions.
Winckelman endeavoured to establish an identity between this
subject and the fable of Peleus and Thetis. This interpretation,
however, met with but few supporters, from the circumstance of
the hero being here welcomed by the female figure with the
serpent, while the generally received version of the fable supposes
him to have obtained her after great opposition. An English
archaeologist, Mr. Watkiss Lloyd, has, with much ingenuity and
learning, endeavoured to establish Winckelman's interpretation.*
If, however, he be disposed to consider the workmanship of this
vase as coeval with the sarcophagus in which it was found, namely,
the period of Septimius Severus, I am not prepared to adopt this
opinion ; but the delicacy of the forms and the singular grace of
the movements show that they are of the period when art was in its
highest perfection. The execution of the heads and the folds of the
drapery is very slight, and sometimes almost meagre. This vase,
which was probably made in the first century, has once been broken,
but all the pieces are there, except one very small one.f Mr. Haw-
* The Classical Museum, No. 21, 1848.
f The restoration of the vase after its wanton destruction in 1S45 is most admirable.
THE BRITISH MUSEUM.
Letter IY.
century in a sarcophagus, in the sepulchral chamber called Monte
del Grano, on the road from Rome to Frascati, and was called,
after the family into whose possession it first came, the Barberini
Vase. About sixty years ago, Sir William Hamilton, who had
become possessed of it, sold it to the Duchess of Portland, from
whom it received its present name of the Portland Vase. In the
year 1810 it was placed by the Duke of Portland in the British
Museum. This very elegantly-shaped vase, which is about ten
inches high, consists of a dark blue glass, over the surface of which
a fine coating of white opaque glass was melted. On this white
coating the figures which were to adorn the vase were drawn,
executed in the manner usual in cameos, and then all that part of
the white coating not included in the outlines of these figures was
ground off, so that they are very strongly relieved by the dark
ground of the blue glass, and produce an effect resembling that of
the onyx cameos. The relief of these figures in the thin coating
is so low, that the general form of the vase is not broken by it,
and all the parts within the external outline are most delicately
modelled on the principle of the reliefs in the Panathenaic
procession, by almost imperceptible elevations and depressions.
Winckelman endeavoured to establish an identity between this
subject and the fable of Peleus and Thetis. This interpretation,
however, met with but few supporters, from the circumstance of
the hero being here welcomed by the female figure with the
serpent, while the generally received version of the fable supposes
him to have obtained her after great opposition. An English
archaeologist, Mr. Watkiss Lloyd, has, with much ingenuity and
learning, endeavoured to establish Winckelman's interpretation.*
If, however, he be disposed to consider the workmanship of this
vase as coeval with the sarcophagus in which it was found, namely,
the period of Septimius Severus, I am not prepared to adopt this
opinion ; but the delicacy of the forms and the singular grace of
the movements show that they are of the period when art was in its
highest perfection. The execution of the heads and the folds of the
drapery is very slight, and sometimes almost meagre. This vase,
which was probably made in the first century, has once been broken,
but all the pieces are there, except one very small one.f Mr. Haw-
* The Classical Museum, No. 21, 1848.
f The restoration of the vase after its wanton destruction in 1S45 is most admirable.