This vase is a copy of the famous Portland-Barberini Vase, a Roman glass amphora made around the beginning of the first century A.D. Found in Rome during the Renaissance, the original vase dazzled admirers with its opaque white mythological scenes cut in lustrous cameo relief, set against a cobalt blue background. The vase was in the collection of the Barberini family before coming to England, where it belonged to the Duke of Portland. After a family friend broke off the vase’s base, the Duke lent it to the British Museum, where he presumed it would be safe and could be widely enjoyed.

The English potter Josiah Wedgwood borrowed the vase to make copies of it. His correspondence reveals he fretted about whether to copy errors in the original as well as the damage to the base. He was advised to restore only the damaged areas in his copy, but not to improve upon the antique design. In 1790, after four years of experiments, a limited edition was offered, of which about ten are still known today. When a drunken man threw a brick at the original Portland-Barberini vase, shattering it to pieces, one of Wedgwood’s copies was used as a guide to piece together the original. Wedgwood’s replicas were in such demand that he subsequently made copies of the copies, which required less labor than the first copies. This vase was issued in one of those later editions. Today copies of the Portland-Barberini vase are still being made, testifying to the enduring appeal of the Roman original.