Medici Vase

TheMedici Vaseis a monumentalmarblebell-shapedkratersculpted inAthensin the second half of the 1st century AD as agarden ornamentfor theRomanmarket. It is now in theUffizi GalleryinFlorence.

Description

Standing 1.52 metres (approximately 5 feet) tall, with a gadrooned everted lip, it has a deep frieze carved with a mythological bas-relief that defies secure identification: a half-draped female figureIphigeniaseated below a statue of a goddess on a high plinth, restored asDiana,with heroic warriors on either side, perhapsAgamemnonand eitherAchillesorOdysseusstanding to either side. Two fluted loop handles rise fromsatyrs' heads on either side of theacanthus-leaf carved base, and it stands on a spreading gadrooned base on a low squareplinth.

History

The vase reappeared in the 1598 inventory of theVilla Medici,Rome, but its origin is unknown. Transferred from the villa in 1780,^[1]it has ever since been displayed in the Uffizi Gallery, today in the first-floorVerone sull’Arnooverlooking theRiver Arno.^[2]It was often illustrated in engravings, the most famous of which is byStefano della Bella(1656); he depicted the young Medici heir who would becomeGrand Duke Cosimo IIIseated, drawing the vase.

Often paired as garden ornaments since the later 17th century with the similarBorghese Vase,^{[n 1]}they are two of the most admired and influential vases from antiquity.^[3]The place of the Medici Vase in theWestern canonof Greek and Roman remains may be gauged by its prominent position in the composed views orcapriccithat were a specialty of the Roman painterGiovanni Paolo Panini,to pick the outstanding example.^{[n 2]}Angelica Kauffmanpainted the second Lord Berwick on hisGrand Tourseated beside the vase.^{[n 3]}

Many "copies", sometimes rather loose, were made to decorate palaces or their gardens. The Medici Vase remains a popular subject for imitation inbronzeorporcelain,for example byWedgwood.Material on the many later decorative versions of the pairing can be found atBorghese Vase.

Copies

Potsdam,Sanssouci
Eugène Atgetphotographs thePalace of Versailles
Wilanów Palace,Poland
Kew Gardens,London

Notes

^The difference in height between the Medici vase and the Borghese vase amount to about two centimeters; seepaired early 19th-century bronze vases.Both were available in artificialLithodipyra(Coade stone) from 1771. The Medici Vase from the pair ordered fromEleanor Coadefor George IV is at theRoyal Botanic Gardens, Kew(Alison Kelly, "Coade Stone in Georgian Gardens",Garden History16.2 (Autumn 1988:109–133) p 111.
^Panini's composedView of Roman Monuments,featuring the Medici Vase, at thePhiladelphia Museum of Artis illustrated in Richard Paul Wunder, "Panini's View of Roman Monuments",Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin56(Winter 1961:54–56) p. 55; in the catalogue of the most influential Roman antiquities in Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny,Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500–1900 (1981) the Medici Vase is cat. no. 82.
^TheAngelica Kauffmanportrait of the second Lord Berwick seated beside the vase is atAttingham Park(National Trust): noted in Wendy Wassyng Roworth, "Painting for Profit and Pleasure: Angelica Kauffman and the Art Business in Rome"Eighteenth-Century Studies29.2 (Winter 1995/1996:225-228) p. 226.

References

^Maria Maugeri, "Il trasferimento a Firenze della collezione antiquaria di Villa Medici in epoca leopoldina",Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz,44.2/3 (2000:306–334) p. 334.
^Uffizi Gallery Archived2006-06-03 at theWayback Machine
^Several 17th and 18th-century variants are illustrated in John Goldsmith Phillips, "The Choisy-Ménars Vases"The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin,New Series,25.6 (February 1967:242–250).

Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, 1981.Taste and the Antique: the Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500–1900(Yale University Press) 1981: cat. no. 82.

External links

[3] The difference in height between the Medici vase and the Borghese vase amount to about two centimeters; seepaired early 19th-century bronze vases.Both were available in artificialLithodipyra(Coade stone) from 1771. The Medici Vase from the pair ordered fromEleanor Coadefor George IV is at theRoyal Botanic Gardens, Kew(Alison Kelly, "Coade Stone in Georgian Gardens",Garden History16.2 (Autumn 1988:109–133) p 111.

[5] Panini's composedView of Roman Monuments,featuring the Medici Vase, at thePhiladelphia Museum of Artis illustrated in Richard Paul Wunder, "Panini's View of Roman Monuments",Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin56(Winter 1961:54–56) p. 55; in the catalogue of the most influential Roman antiquities in Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny,Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500–1900 (1981) the Medici Vase is cat. no. 82.

[6] TheAngelica Kauffmanportrait of the second Lord Berwick seated beside the vase is atAttingham Park(National Trust): noted in Wendy Wassyng Roworth, "Painting for Profit and Pleasure: Angelica Kauffman and the Art Business in Rome"Eighteenth-Century Studies29.2 (Winter 1995/1996:225-228) p. 226.

[1] Maria Maugeri, "Il trasferimento a Firenze della collezione antiquaria di Villa Medici in epoca leopoldina",Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz,44.2/3 (2000:306–334) p. 334.

[2] Uffizi Gallery Archived2006-06-03 at theWayback Machine

[4] Several 17th and 18th-century variants are illustrated in John Goldsmith Phillips, "The Choisy-Ménars Vases"The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin,New Series,25.6 (February 1967:242–250).

[1]

[2]

[n 1]

[3]

[n 2]

[n 3]