Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum | Busch-Reisinger Museum | Arthur M. Sackler Museum

The original Greco-Roman Portland Vase was made from cameo glass in the first century CE. In 1786, the Duke of Portland lent it to Josiah Wedgwood, who promptly set his artists to copying it and manufacturing meticulous replicas. Early versions of the vase cracked in the firing process or failed to achieve the desired appearance. Wedgwood’s artisans struggled for four years to perfect their material and techniques, developing a blue-black clay to evoke the dark opaque glass of the original. Ultimately a limited edition — of which this is number nine — was sold, mostly through special viewings at the Wedgwood showroom. The name of John Trevor, who acquired this example from the manufacturer in 1797, is written inside the lip of the vase. One of Wedgwood’s most celebrated works, this was the first example from the subscription edition to enter an American collection. In the early twentieth century, this elaborate wooden stand was built to showcase the figure of Paris at the base of the vase.

Object Number

1943.1181

People

Josiah Wedgwood & Sons, British

Title

Portland Vase

Other Titles

Former Title: Copy of the Portland Vase, first edition

Classification

Vessels

Work Type

vessel

Date

c. 1795

Places

Creation Place: Europe, United Kingdom, England, Etruria

Culture

British

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/229912

Medium

Jasperware

Technique

Jasperware

Dimensions

25.8 x 18.5 cm diam. (10 3/16 x 7 5/16 in.)

Inscriptions and Marks

• inscription: inner lip, manganese pencil, handwritten: 9
• inscription: inner lip, manganese pencil, handwritten: J. Trevor

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop

Accession Year

1943

Object Number

1943.1181

Division

European and American Art

Contact

am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu

THIS WORK MAY NOT BE LENT BY THE TERMS OF ITS ACQUISITION TO THE HARVARD ART MUSEUMS.

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[Reproduction only], "Porcelain and Pottery", Bulletin of the Fogg Art Museum, Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, November 1943)., repr. in b/w, p. 66

Jean Gorely, "The Winthrop Collection", Old Wedgwood, Wellesley Press, Inc. (Wellesley, MA, 1943), no. 10, pp. 132-139, p. 135

Old Wedgwood from the Bequest of Grenville Lindall Winthrop, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1944), no. 92, p. 36-38; repr. p. 92

Jean Gorely, "Pedigreed Wedgwood", The Magazine Antiques (January 1945), pp. 29-31, p. 30

Jean Gorely, Wedgwood, M. Barrows and Co. (New York, 1950), pp.122-125, repr. p. 123

Wolf Mankowitz, The Portland Vase and the Wedgwood Copies, A. Deutsch (London, England, 1952), pp. 44, 47

Dorothy W. Gillerman, ed., Grenville L. Winthrop: Retrospective for a Collector, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, 1969), no. 137, p. 215

Vivian Scheidemantel Hawes, [Editorial], National Antiques Review (January 1974), p. 5

Aileen Dawson, Masterpieces of Wedgwood in the British Museum, exh. cat., British Museum Publications Limited (London, England, 1984), p. 149, no. 9

Kristin A. Mortimer and William G. Klingelhofer, Harvard University Art Museums: A Guide to the Collections, Harvard University Art Museums and Abbeville Press (Cambridge and New York, 1986), no. 245, p. 213, repr.

Judith A. Neiswander, "Selections from the Ceramics Collection of the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University", Ars Ceramica, Wedgwood Society of New York (Bronx, NY, 1991), no. 8, p. 38, repr. as fig. 5

Stephan Wolohojian, ed., A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press (U.S.) (New York, 2003), p.14, fig. 9

Stephan Wolohojian, Ingres, Burne-Jones, Whistler, Renoir... La Collection Grenville L. Winthrop, exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and Réunion des Musées Nationaux (Paris, France, 2003), p. 27, fig. 9

Stephan Wolohojian and Alvin L. Clark, Jr., Harvard Art Museum/ Handbook, ed. Stephan Wolohojian, Harvard Art Museum (Cambridge, 2008), p. 129, repr.

Casey Monahan, "'If I offer you too much you have the remedy by declining it!:' Frederick Rathbone and the Grenville Lindall Winthrop Collection of Wedgwood at the Harvard Art Museums", Proceedings of the Sixty-Fourth Annual Wedgwood International Seminar, Birmingham Museum of Art (Birmingham, 2019), pp. 33-43, pp. 34-35, 40-41, repr. p. 34 as fig. 1

Casey Monahan, "Grenville Winthrop's Portland Vase", Index Magazine, Harvard Art Museums ([e-journal], May 13, 2020), https://www.harvardartmuseums.org/article/grenville-winthrop-s-portland-vase, accessed May 26, 2020

Old Wedgwood from the Bequest of Grenville Lindall Winthrop, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 06/04/1944 - 09/03/1944

Old Wedgwood, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/19/1973 - 05/27/1973

Eighteenth Century European Ceramics, Harvard University Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/02/2005 - 06/09/2008

Re-View: S424-426 Western Art from 1560 to 1900, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 08/16/2008 - 06/18/2011

32Q: 2220 18th-19th Century, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050

Collection Highlights

Google Art Project

• 

  Grenville Winthrop’s Portland Vase

  Collections

  Casey Kane Monahan

  May 13, 2020

• M2869.2.35

  Giovanni Battista Piranesi

  One of the shorter sides of the same sarcophagus

  Prints
• 2003.81

  Wedgwood

  Miniature Copy of the Portland Vase

  Vessels
• 1943.1259

  Manufactured by Wedgwood

  Trial for the Portland Vase

  Sculpture

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu