Cleveland Museum of Art
Portland Vase
Josiah Wedgwood and SonsLinkedCulture matchlcp-c27ee3504daa
- Date
- c.1790
- Medium
- jasperware with applied decoration
- Culture
- England, Staffordshire
- Department
- Decorative Art and Design
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 99259
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
The original Portland Vase is a Roman antiquity, made of dark-blue glass, dating from the first century AD. Such a rare archaeological find fascinated aristocratic collectors and artists alike, and eventually the vase came into the hands of the 3rd Duke of Portland in the 1780s. Around 1790 the duke lent the vase to the potter Josiah Wedgwood to make exact replicas in ceramic, of which the Cleveland example is one of the first editions. Eventually, the 4th Duke of Portland deposited the original Roman vase in the British Museum, where it resides today. While the scene depicted here is not known for certain, many scholars believe that the Portland Vase portrays the wedding of Peleus and Thetis from Greek mythology.
The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.
Get printable QR codesHide QR codes
Open QR codes for this object page and the museum record. They stay collapsed until needed.
Provenance & credit
As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.
- Credit line
- Gift of Mrs. L. E. Holden
- Provenance
- 1918-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Related across collections
Semantically similar works from Cleveland Museum of Art and other institutions.