Portland Vase - Life Story - 1778 To Present - Vandalism and Reconstruction

Vandalism and Reconstruction

On February 7, 1845, the vase was shattered by William Lloyd, who, after drinking all the previous week, threw a nearby sculpture on top of the case smashing both it and the vase.

He was arrested and charged with the crime of Willful Damage. When his lawyer pointed out an error in the wording of the act which seemed to limit its application to cases of the destruction of objects worth no more than five pounds, he was convicted instead of the destruction of the glass case in which the vase had sat. He was ordered to pay a fine of three pounds or spend two months in prison. He remained in prison until an anonymous benefactor paid the fine by mail.

The name William Lloyd is thought to be a pseudonym. He had been living under this name in London. He claimed to be a student at Trinity College, Dublin. Investigators hired by the British Museum concluded that he was actually William Mulcahy, a student who had gone missing from Trinity College. Detectives reported that the Mulcahy family was impoverished. The owner of the vase declined to bring a civil action against William Mulcahy because he did not want his family to suffer for "an act of folly or madness which they could not control".

The vase was pieced together with fair success, though the restorer was unable to replace all of the pieces and thirty-seven small fragments were left when he was done. It appears they had been put into a box and forgotten. In 1948, the keeper Bernard Ashmole received thirty-seven fragments in a box from Mr. Croker of Putney, who did not know what they were. In 1845 Mr. Doubleday, the first restorer, had not been able to figure out where these fragments went. A colleague took them to Mr. Gabb, a box maker, who was asked to make a box with thirty seven compartments, one for each fragment. The colleague died, the box was never collected, Mr. Gabb died and his executrix Miss Revees asked Croker to ask the museum if they could identify them.

By 1948, the restoration appeared aged and it was decided to restore the vase again, but the restorer was only successful in replacing three fragments. The adhesive from this weakened, by 1986 the joints rattled when the vase was gently tapped.

The third and current reconstruction took place from 1 June 1988 and was completed on 1 October 1989 by Nigel Williams and Sandra Smith (and overseen by David Akehurst (CCO of Glass and Ceramics) who had assessed the vase's condition during its appearance as the focal piece of an international exhibition of Roman glass and, at the conclusion of the exhibition, it was decided to go ahead with reconstruction and stabilization. The treatment had scholarly attention and press coverage. The vase was photographed and drawn to record the position of fragments before dismantling; the BBC filmed the conservation process. All the adhesives used in previous restorations had deteriorated, so to find one that would last, conservation scientists at the museum tested many adhesives for long term stability. Finally, an epoxy resin with excellent aging properties was chosen. Reassembly of the vase was made more difficult as the edges of some fragments were found to have been filed down during the restorations. Nevertheless, all of the fragments were replaced except for a few small splinters. Areas that were still missing were gap-filled with a blue or white resin.

The newly conserved Portland Vase was returned to display. Little sign of the original damage is visible and, except for light cleaning, the vase should not require major conservation work for many years.