PORTLAND VASE

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6900, 4 May 1929, Page 9

PORTLAND VASE

AUCTION AT CHRISTIE’S. BUYERS BID OVER £30,000. British Official Wireless. RUGBY, May 2. There was a dramatic surprise at Christie’s saleroom to-day, when the famous Portland vase was put up to auction. In thirty-five seconds the bidding had reached 29,000 guineas. It was then understood by the big crowd that the vase had been sold. A woman, wanted to know the name of the purchaser as she said the British public were keenly interested in the sale of the vase. The auctioneer did not reply, and only later was it made known that the vase had been withdrawn. Buyers from Africa and the Continent had been keen bidders against British buyers.

The vase which is of dark blue glass with white cameolike figures upon it, illustrating tho legend of Pelcus and Thetis, is reputed to have boon in Rome nearly five centuries. Sir William Hamilton, British Ambassador in Rome, brought it to London and sold it to tho Duchess of Portland. Tho Duke of Portland sent the vase to the British Museum for safekeeping, but some years later it was smashed by a drunken visitor. Tire vase bad been on loan at the British Museum for more than a* century when it was decided to sei! it.