Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 289, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 December 1910 — Masterpiece of Glass Work [ARTICLE]

Masterpiece of Glass Work

In the British museum, in London, on exhibition, is ,the Portland vase, the masterpiece of ancient glasswork. A chance discovery led to the rescue of this magnificent urn from the grave, where it had lain for hundreds of years, hidden and unknown. The vase was found early In the seventeenth century by some laborers, who, digging on a hillock tn the neighborhood of Rome, broke into a small vault On further examination it revealed a suite of three sepulchral chambers. In the largest room they found a finely sculptured sarcophagus, which contained the beautiful vase. It was full of ashes, but it bore no inscription as to the remains it held, nor has the mystery ever been solved which shrouds its origin. The vase was deposited in the Barberlnl palace, where it remained until 1770, when the representative of the Barberlnl family, a Roman princess, was forced to part with it to pay her gambling debts. The vase changed hands twice, then it was disposed of to the duchess of Portland, but with such secrecy that her own family was not aware of the transaction until after, her death. At the sale of the duchess of Portland’s collection it was purchased by her son, the third duke of Portland, for the sum of |5,145, and It was deposited in the museum by his successor. The vase was wantonly smashed In pieces by a drunken visitor, but the fragments were, however, Joined together, but the bottom, with its mysterious figure in Phrygian cap, was not replaced. The material of this vase was long almost

as great a puzzle as the story It illustrates. Breval refers to it as “the famous vase of chaledony;” Misson calls it an agate; Bartoll a sardonyx; while Caylus and others correctly decided that it was made of glass. The blue body was first formed, and while still red hot, coated over as far as the bas reliefs were intended to reach with semiopaque white glass, the delicate figure being afterwards cut down to the blue ground in the same manner as with real cameos.