THE PORTLAND VASE
ANCIENT ROMAN RELIC. United Service. London, March 7. The Portland vase, to be sold by auction at Christie’s, is only ten inches high, made of blue glass, bearing white opaque figures, yet its value is incalculable. Its actual age nobody knows. It was found in Rome in the seventeenth century. History traced it back as far as the year 23a A.D. It was reputed to contain the ashes of the Emperor Severus. Sir William Hamilton, husband of Nelson’s Lady Hamilton, brought the vase to England at the end of the eighteenth century. The Cavendishes acquired it, and sold it for £lB9O.. It can safely be assumed that high taxation has driven the owner, the Duke of Portland, to sell it. Only when a miscreant broke the vase into a hundred pieces in 184.: did the museum experts learn that it was made of ancient Roman glass.
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Bibliographic details
Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 140, 9 March 1929, Page 6
Word Count
149THE PORTLAND VASE Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 140, 9 March 1929, Page 6
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