The Portland Vase: Mania & Muse (1780-2023)

(Hardback)

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Description

The Portland Vase, the ancient Roman glass cameo amphora held in the British Museum, has been replicated and reinterpreted countless times, becoming a global brand that has resonated with makers, collectors, and consumers for centuries.

Featuring more than 65 artworks, this book examines the role of brands in our culture and asks why Western Classical traditions dominate the artistic canon, and how that canon might be reconsidered and disrupted. Josiah Wedgwood, Viola Frey, Clare Twomey and Robert Lugo, among others engaged with the cameo-glass masterpiece. Their creative conceptual choices respond to complex histories of transfiguration and representation to create a new set of visual and cultural dialogues.

Author Bio

Rachel Gotlieb (PhD) is the Ruth Rippon Curator of Ceramics at the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California, USA. She is the author of Ceramics in the Victorian Era (1840- 1890): Meanings and Metaphors in Painting and Literature (Bloomsbury 2023). Previously she was Chief Curator at the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, Toronto Canada.