Editing Portland Vase (section)

====Copies====
[[Image:Portland Vase V&A.jpg|thumb|left|Replica of Portland Vase, about 1790, Josiah Wedgwood and Sons; V&A Museum no. 2418-1901]]
Wedgwood had already had it described to him by the sculptor [[John Flaxman]] as "the finest production of Art that has been brought to England and seems to be the very apex of perfection to which you are endeavoring" and devoted four years of painstaking trials at duplicating the vase – not in glass but in black and white [[jasperware]]. He had problems with his copies ranging from cracking and blistering (clearly visible on the example at the [[Victoria and Albert Museum]]) to the [[Sprigging (pottery)|sprigged]] reliefs 'lifting' during the firing, and in 1786 he feared that he could never apply the Jasper relief thinly enough to match the glass original's subtlety and delicacy. He finally managed to perfect it in 1790, with the issue of the "first-edition" of copies (with some of this edition, including the V&A one, copying the cameo's delicacy by a combination of undercutting and shading the reliefs in grey), and it marks his last major achievement.{{citation needed|date=August 2017}}

Wedgwood put the first edition on private show between April and May 1790, with that exhibition proving so popular that visitor numbers had to be restricted by only printing 1,900 tickets, before going on show in his public London showrooms. (One ticket to the private exhibition, illustrated by Samuel Alkin and printed with "Admission to see Mr Wedgwood's copy of The Portland Vase, Greek Street, Soho, between 12 o'clock and 5", was bound into the Wedgwood catalogue on view in the Victoria and Albert Museum's British Galleries.) As well as the V&A copy (said to have come from the collection of Wedgwood's grandson, the naturalist [[Charles Darwin]]),<ref>{{cite book|editor=Jackson, Anna|title= V&A: A Hundred Highlights|publisher=V&A Publications|year=2001}}</ref> others are held at the [[Fitzwilliam Museum]] (this is the copy sent by Wedgwood to [[Erasmus Darwin]] which his descendants lent to the Museum in 1963 and later sold to them); the Department of Britain, Europe and Prehistory at the [[British Museum]],<ref>{{cite web|url= https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1802-0312-1 |title=vase, museum number 1802,0312.1; The British Museum |publisher= britishmuseum.org |access-date= 29 December 2024}}</ref> and the [[Indianapolis Museum of Art]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.imamuseum.org/art/collections/artwork/vase-copy-portland-vase-josiah-wedgwood-and-sons-ltd |title=vase (copy of Portland vase) &#124; Indianapolis Museum of Art |publisher= Imamuseum.org |access-date=16 December 2011}}</ref> The Auckland War Memorial Museum has a 19th-century jasperware [https://www.aucklandmuseum.com/collections-research/collections/record/am_humanhistory-object-11491?k=portland%20vase&dept=Applied%20Arts%20and%20Design&ordinal=0 facsimile] in their collections. The soap magnate William Hesketh Lever, who has one of the finest collections of Wedgwood Jasperware in existence today, purchased two of Wedgwood's Portland vases. One of them is on display in the Wedgwood rooms of the [[Lady Lever Art Gallery]] in Port Sunlight

The vase also inspired a 19th-century competition to duplicate its cameo-work in glass, with Benjamin Richardson offering a £1,000 prize to anyone who could achieve that feat. Taking three years, glass maker Philip Pargeter made a copy and John Northwood engraved it, to win the prize. This copy is in the [[Corning Museum of Glass]] in Corning, New York.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.cmog.org/video/replica-portland-vase|title=All About Glass {{!}} Corning Museum of Glass|website=www.cmog.org|date=22 September 2011 |language=en|access-date=24 February 2018}}</ref>

The [[Wedgwood Museum]] collection is now branded the V&A Wedgwood Collection.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.worldofwedgwood.com/content/about-va-wedgwood-collection |title=About The V&A Wedgwood Collection |website=worldofwedgwood.com|language=en|access-date=29 December 2024}}</ref> Displays at Barlaston, near Stoke-on-Trent, are now branded World of Wedgwoo, described on its website as “Home to Stoke-on-Trent's most prestigious brand, Wedgwood”, and include the galleries of the V&A Wedgwood Collection.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.worldofwedgwood.com |title=Welcome to a World of Experiences |website=worldofwedgwood.com|language=en|access-date=29 December 2024}}</ref>