Portland Vase

A relatively early example, in solid pale blue jasper.

The Portland Vase is a Roman cameo glass vessel, generally dated to the early 1st century AD (often Augustan or Julio-Claudian). It is made of deep cobalt-blue glass overlaid with opaque white, which was then cut back to create a continuous classical relief scene.

Josiah Wedgwood became obsessed with reproducing the Portland Vase after seeing it in the 1770s. His aim was not merely imitation but to demonstrate the technical and artistic supremacy of English ceramics over classical antiquity.

Wedgwood’s Portland Vase copies became icons of Neoclassicism, widely admired and collected. They played a crucial role in establishing jasperware as Wedgwood’s signature achievement and in linking British manufacture with classical taste and scholarship.

Some minor marks; jasper of this period was prone to this.