The New Student's Reference Work/Portland Vase

Portland Vase, a celebrated, ancient, Roman glass-vase or cinerary urn found during the pontificate of Urban VIII (1623-44) in Monte del Grano near Rome. It was purchased by Sir William Hamilton in 1770, and a few years later by the Portland family, who deposited it in the British Museum. The vase was broken into pieces by a lunatic in 1845, but the fragments were skillfully united. It is ten inches in height and the finest known specimen of an ancient, cameo-cut glass.