vase

The fame of the Portland Vase and of Wedgwood's replicas of it, played a major role in the establishment of cameo glassmaking in England. The leading promoter of the revival was Benjamin Richardson (1802-1887) of the Red House Glassworks at Wordsley, who employed many of the most talented glass engravers, etchers, and carvers of the day. Richardson not only bought one of Wedgwood's replicas of the Portland Vase to inspire his craftsmen, but also offered £1000 to anyone who could reproduce it in cameo glass. Richardson's challenge was taken up by two of his employees, Philip Pargeter, who in 1873 supervised the production of the first cased blank shaped like the vase (it was blown by Daniel hancock), and John Northwood, who between 1873 and 1876 carved one of Pargeter's blanks into the first glass replica made by the cameo technique. Northwood's Portland Vase was not the earliest 19th-century cameo glass; Northwood himself had carved a vase decorated with Perseus and Andromeda around 1860. It was, however, the first modern cameo glass to be received with acclaim, and its exhibition led to a flood of commissions and a vogue for cameo glasses that, in England, lasted until the end of the century. One other reproduction of the vase is associated with Pargeter and Northwood: a colorless vessel with etched decoration, which is said to be one of several made under Pargeter's supervision to insure that his workmen could produce the correct form. The etching is attributed to Northwood. (see cameo glass in Stourbridge 89.2.11.)