Copy of the “Portland Vase”

Josiah Wedgwood & Sons.

Blue-black jasper with white moulded relief

Victoria and Albert Museum. Transferred from the Museum of Practical Geology, Jermyn Street

Wedgwood’s most virtuoso work of technical proficiency was a “first edition” copy of the so-called Portland vase, [which] is a stoneware body copy of a cameo-cut glass dating back to 40-30BC, which had become, alter its acquisition by the Duke of Portland, one of the most venerated antiquities of the Roman past. The allure of posterity and the sheer technical challenge drove Wedgwood in his final decade to embark upon his quixotic desire to recast the vase. Embodied in Wedgwood’s version is a history of breathtaking ceramic artistry, but also an insight ito the 18th-century rediscovery of the classical inheritance, and a masterful example of marketing and brand deelopment. — Metropolitan Museum of artist

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