For thousands of years an enigmatic and astonishingly beautiful piece of Roman art has captivated those who have come in contact with it.Made before the birth of Christ, the Portland Vase, as it is called, is renowned for both its beauty and its mystery.In The Portland Vase, Robin Brooks takes us on a vivid journey across Europe and through the centuries, as this delicate piece of glass, less than ten inches in height, passes through the hands of a stunning cast of characters, including the first Roman emperor, Augustus; a notorious tomb raider; a reckless cardinal; a princess with a nasty gambling habit; the ceramics genius Josiah Wedgwood; the secretive Duchess of Portland; and a host of politicians, dilettantes, and scam artists.Rich with passion, inspiration, jealousy, and endless speculation, the story of The Portland Vase spans more than two thousand years and remains one of the art world's greatest enigmas.

Robin Brooks is an actor and author living in England. He has written several plays for BBC Radio

The Portland Vase
The Extraordinary Odyssey of a Mysterious Roman Treasure

First Fragment

Breaking

February 7, 1845, could not be described as a quiet day at theBritish Museum. The museum was halfway through a painfulprocess of total transformation from its original home in the outmodedand outgrown Montague House to the large new buildingdesigned by Robert Smirke, which was going up piecemeal in its place.The museum was a building site; Montague House was being slowlydemolished, and beside it the new wing, known as the Lycian Gallery,intended to hold treasures from excavations in Anatolia, was risingapace. The site was covered with laborers, great wooden beams ofscaffolding, draft animals, and even soldiers to guard the works. Ironwall ties were being forged in situ, a rather rickety-looking contraptioncalled a "traveler" conveyed massive blocks of Portland stone (norelation) about the site, and top-hatted supervisors stalked throughthe confusion. The Keeper of Manuscripts, Frederic Madden, was stillliving with his family (including a very pregnant wife) in what was left of the old buildings. He complained of the "insufferable dirt andnoise." His water supply had been cut off. Rats and bugs, fleeing thedemolition, infested his apartments. The western wall of the buildingwas leaning at an angle that left him "in continual dread of its fallingdown" and burying him and his family in its ruins.

The new structures were no safer than the old. A contemporaryartist recorded an accident during the building of the Lycian Galleryduring which a five-ton girder that was being hoisted up to the roof -- a process that took four hours -- broke loose and crashed to theground, breaking into fragments but mercifully missing the workmen.

In all this chaos, the business of the museum went on as best itcould. The vase sat under its glass cover in Gallery 9, and at the endof a freezing winter afternoon a handful of visitors strolled about,enjoying the last look ever taken of the vase in its pristine state. Ayoung man had entered the room, with "something strange in hislooks and manner." He waited until the guard had walked out intothe larger, adjoining gallery -- Gallery 10 -- then he picked up a largefragment of sculpture from the ancient city of Persepolis that waslying at hand and heaved it at the vase. Had he hit it fair and square,he would have reduced the vase to an irreparable cloud of splintersand dust, but his hand was shaky, his aim was off, and the greaterpart of the missile hit the floor, leaving a hefty dent in the flagstone.Nevertheless, the solid glass cover was broken through, and the vaseitself smashed into more than two hundred pieces. Something thatwas born under the Caesars and had survived countless generationsperished in an instant.

The noise brought the public and the guards running. It brought"officers of the department" from an adjoining room, and they actedwith commendable speed, immediately ordering the attendants toclose the doors to Galleries 9 and 10. The five members of the publicstill in Gallery 9 were asked to walk next door, where they were questionedby the Keeper of Antiquites, Edward Hawkins. Four of them, understandably worried that they might be falsely accused of complicityin the outrage, answered promptly. The fifth hung back untildirectly confronted. "A stout young man, in a kind of pilot coat, withboth hands in his pockets before him, replied, when questioned, in adogged and determined tone, 'I did it.' " He was handed over to apolice officer. The attendants began gingerly to clear up the mess.Frederic Madden, summoned by a messenger, appeared to look overwhat was left of the vase:

On proceeding up to the room where it was exhibited, I foundit strewed on the ground in a thousand pieces, and wasinformed that a short time before a young man who hadwatched his opportunity when the room was clear, had takenup one of the large sculptured Babylonian stones, and dashedthe Vase, together with the glass cover over it, to atoms! Theman, apparently, is quite sane, and sober.

For Madden, no democrat, the moral was clear, and he confided itto his journal:

This is the result of exhibiting such valuable and unique specimensof art to the mob! Had the facsimile been shewn to them,and the original kept in Mr Hawkins's room, this irreparablemischief could not have taken place. Indeed as to the mob ofvisitors, I am so confident that they never regarded it, that ifthe stone which broke it, were put in its place, it would excite agreat deal more attention. It is really monstrous to witnesssuch wanton destruction! I am quite grieved about it. Yet whatwill be the punishment? Perhaps a fine of a few pounds or amonth's imprisonment and he may then come out and destroysomething else!

Much has changed, of course, since Madden's day, but there arecurators here and there who still find it hard to fight the convictionthat the objects in their care belong to them, and not to greasy hoipolloi who so impertinently insist on trampling through the galleriesfor which their taxes are paying.

A trustee of the museum happened to be on site, looking at manuscriptsin Madden's room, and it fell to him to grovel in a letter to theDuke of Portland, who had loaned his vase to the museum, with newsof the "most lamentable occurrence which has happened only a fewminutes ago within our walls ... I have this minute come from theroom, where the attendants are occupied in sweeping up the remnantsof what less than an hour ago was one of the noblest ornamentsof this great National Collection, and a monument of your Grace'sliberality and of the trust you reposed in our safe-keeping."

The Portland Vase
The Extraordinary Odyssey of a Mysterious Roman Treasure. Copyright © by Robin Brooks. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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Excerpted from The Portland Vase: The Extraordinary Odyssey of a Mysterious Roman Treasure by Robin J. Brooks
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.