THE PORTLAND VASE. 307 



late owner. So he bid on to upwards of a thousand pounds, 

 until, it is related, the duke, stepping across the room to 

 him, asked his object in wishing to possess the vase. On 

 learning his object, the duke offered, if Wedgwood would 

 give over* bidding and permit him to become its purchaser, 

 to place it in his hands, and allow him to keep it sufficiently 

 long to reproduce and do what he required. This arrange- 

 ment being as frankly accepted as it was offered, the duke 

 became the purchaser of the vase for 1,029, and Wedg- 

 wood took with him the priceless gem. The price paid for 

 this vase has been variously stated from 1,000 to 1,800. 

 Wedgwood himself says, in his treatise, " The Duke of 

 Portland purchased the vase for about 1,000 guineas, and, 

 thanks to^this nobleman's zeal for the Fine Arts, I was 

 soon enabled to accomplish my anxious desire, by his Grace's 

 readiness to afford me the means of making a copy." In 

 a priced copy of the catalogue, the sum of 1,029 is put 

 against the vase, and this being "about 1,000 guineas/' as 

 Wedgwood says, may probably have been the correct sum. 

 The duke kept his word liberally, and Wedgwood never lost 

 an opportunity of speaking in high terms of his Grace's 

 consideration. " I cannot," he writes in 1787, " sufficiently 

 express my obligation to his Grace the Duke of Portland 

 for entrusting this inestimable jewel to my care, and con- 

 tinuing it so long more than twelve months in my hands, 

 without which it would have been impossible to do any toler- 

 able justice to this rare work of art. I have now some reason 

 to flatter myself with the hope of producing, in a short time, 

 a copy which will not be unworthy the public notice." 



This copy was in due time produced, and as a chef-d* ceuvre 

 of modern ceramic art was perfectly unrivalled. Wedgwood 

 produced fifty copies, which were subscribed for at fifty 

 guineas each; but it is said that the sum thus realised 

 (2,500) fell far short of his actual outlay in making them. 

 One of the first fifty is still in the possession of Mr. Francis 

 Wedgwood, at Barlaston ; another is in the possession of 

 Mr. Marjoribanks, at Guisachan, and others are preserved 



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