ODE TO A GRECIAN URN
On the subject of vases, there’s a little something for everyone. This includes even the most reluctant of decorative art students, who may not find such histories traditionally substantial enough as that of war and religion. But the forces of “Vasemania” have moved armies, if not mountains. In 1717, Augustus II “the Strong” of Saxony (nicknamed both for his ability to break horseshoes with his bare hands as well as for his talent in fathering a great many children)* traded 600 of his soldiers to Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia in exchange for 151 blue-and-white Chinese porcelain vases. They are still on view at the Dresden Porcelain Collection to this day.
And then, a few decades down the line: Neoclassicism. It’s difficult to imagine a time in which the vase was the most defining form of an entire cultural movement, but such is true in the 18th century. With the discovery of Pompeii in 1748 and the droves of British noblemen and intellectuals embarking on their Grand Tours to Italy and Greece, the ancient vases of the Greeks and Romans quickly became definitive symbols of classical imagery. Sir William Hamilton, the British ambassador to Naples at the time (as well as one of the most important collectors of antiquities in all of British history) hoarded such treasures back to England by the shipload, inspiring a flurry of fashionable copies soon dispersed to gilded halls. In 1798, one such ship was sunk at sea in a failed evasion of Napoleonic fleets, resulting in one of the world’s greatest known archeological losses.
In fact, two of the most famous vases in all of history were acquired by Hamilton: the Portland Vase and the Warwick Vase. The former, a rare cameo-cut glasswork dated between 1-25 AD, Hamilton sold to the Duchess of Portland in 1784. The richest woman in all of Britain at the time, the Duchess was described in one of Horace Walpole’s letters as “a simple woman, but perfectly sober, and intoxicated only by empty vases.”
The Warwick Vase, a several foot-wide stone structure discovered at Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli, would become one of the most copied objects throughout the whole of the following century. More recently, one might recognize the trophy of the Australian Open fashioned in its form, or the pair of two gilded Warwicks serving as a base for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s famous lemon elderflower wedding cake in 2018.
One might still ask: but why a vase? Empty vases, in fact - too large or impractical in which to put anything. Yet imagine: the ashes of Vesuvius settling to dust over Pompeii, preserving beneath it objects that would become embodiments of whole civilizations lost to the annals of history. Vases upon vases, preserved and uncovered thousands of years later by wide-eyed archaeologists. In 1819, Romantic poet John Keats wrote “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” In describing the object’s form, he concluded with the lines
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
And somewhere, in the murky depths where Hamilton’s lost cargo lies at the bottom of the sea, the fish flutter between ripping waves of beauty and truth.
*Indeed, I came across a Wikipedia article titled “List of People with the Most Children” in which Augustus’ brood is claimed to have numbered between 365 and 382.
Research notes: I learned many of these facts at curator talks at The Rienzi Museum, Houston
4.22.2020