Featured Purple Wedgwood Bowl

Another Wedgwood piece from the same estate sale, I can’t find anything quite like it with lens… any ideas? I’m not really a Wedgwood collector but this really stood out to me

 

Does it say Wedgwood somewhere? I don't recognize the mark (for what that's worth). Nice flambe glaze. Can't say the piece has a Wedgwood look to me.

 

I believe it’s one of these, I just can’t tell because its faded

 

To me, that mark looks like a tower with an animal to either side.

 

maybe the 1900 onwards mark,,,,,

 

Definitely the Portland Vase mark. The original, which had to be pieced back together after a drunken visitor smashed it, is in the British Museum. Wedgwood struggled for years to reproduce it in his jasper ware, finally succeeding & enhancing his fame with it. The really high end ones are like this:

https://rauantiques.com/products/wedgwood-first-edition-portland-vase

These are mounted on a stand with a mirror in the base so you can see the cameo on the bottom. The Museum now displays that bit with the vase, but not attached to it. [I & one other person I'm aware of think the Portland Vase is a Renaissance fraud.]

 

I see, there was a copy of the Portland vase at this auction but it had seams that weren’t even polished lol.
When I was googling the Portland vase I came across this: https://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/3606

 

Funny, Tuesday evening I heard a radio program I think I had heard before concerning the scandal in the art world, particularly the New York City art world, when quite a number of fakes were sold by a couple of highly respected galleries. A woman came to them with the story that she was acting on behalf of a European collector who insisted on remaining anonymous, bringing the paintings with her not even in crates. She did not try to unload them all at once, turning up with one or a few every now & then. The galleries fell for it; buyers made purchases - for many times what the galleries had paid - reassured by the galleries' prestige. It went on for about 15 years, due to the will to believe on the part of the galleries & their clients, and the reluctance of those who suspected fraud to speak out for fear of being sued for "defamation of property." You can listen to it here, "Fancy Galleries, Fake Art":

https://www.wnyc.org/shows/reveal

The Bonhams vase has disappeared again. This is a good summary:

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20130916-mystery-of-a-missing-masterpiece

Any time you see words like 'only', 'miraculous' & 'unprecedented' in connection with an alleged antiquity, look more than twice, that's my advice.

I have a reprint of the monograph Josiah Wedgwood produced with all the many interpretations of the 2 scenes on the Portland Vase. I don't know what to make of the other side, but the side with the one figure everyone agrees on, Cupid, seems to me obviously Orpheus & Eurydice. I used to come across these artificial cameos regularly. Suspect they are museum souvenirs:



It's not the prevailing interpretation, but I'm not alone. Pierre-François Hugues, Baron d'Hancarville thought so too. It was he who brought the vase to the attention of Sir William Hamilton, and he is so associated with it that it served to identify him on an engraved gem:

 

i've never seen anything like it to be honest but..........stunning