The Portland vase: new clues towards old solutions

Abstract

The number of interpretations of the scenes (or scene, if it is regarded as one continuous one) on the two sides of the Portland Vase had by the end of 1992 reached the impressive total of forty-six. All of these, while involving valuable observations about the figures, their poses and setting, fall a long way short of proof. Most are over-complicated, introducing implausible identifications of figures and scenes. This is true of the most recent attempts by Painter and Whitehouse in the Journal of Glass Studies, repeated in the volume on Roman glass jointly edited by one of the same writers, and of a note in JHS cxii (1992) by Harrison.

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