Bridgeton pioneer., 1884-03-13

$50 b. G. Glass was manufactured in
Greece probably about the same time
it was in Carthage, but il never
reached Il high state of perfection
there. General De Cesnola, your New
York gentleman who has recently
been having so much trouble with his
manned statuary, gathered u remarka-
BILE collection of old Greek glass, made
before Christ's time, at Dali, in the
Island of Cyprus. | believe De Ces-
nola secured some seventeen hundred
or eighteen hundred pieces BY some
it is thought the celebrated Portland
vase is of Greek origin. Rome is sup
posed to have entered upon glass-mak
ing only some three hundred or four
hundred years before the Christian
era. She brought it into the empire
along with her other conquests. Alex
ander Severus, 220 B. c., levied a tax
upon its manufacture within the I'M
perial City, and in the reign of Tibe-
RUS the glass-makers had an entire
street to themselves in the Porta Ca
pena. The Roman glass works then
shipped to all parts of the civilized
world, and specimens of their produc-
ton are to-day found throughout
Europe, and even in Ireland. When
Rome commenced to decline, and her
great people fled to Byzantium, they
took with them their glass industries,
and Constantinople became the great
est glass manufacturing city in the
world This prestige it held upto the
tenth or eleventh century, and when
it entered upon its decline and fall the
glass blowers fled to Venice, and there
established what afterwards grew into
the celebrated Venetian glassware
Though this is rather an exhaustive
resume of ancient glass making, | can
not close the article without brief ref
erence to the celebrated Portland Vase,
for it is a beautiful connection link
between the past and present. Thou
the name Portland Vase is familiar
really know nothing about it, and
thousands more see mutations of il in
store windows, and have not the
slightest idea of what they are gazing
upon. The Portland Vase was found
in sarcophagus dedicated TO the En-
peror Severous, who was killed A d.
$3.50 three miles from the city of Rome,
on the road to Lauremtium. 1t is ten
inches high and six inches wide, made
of dark blue glass and ornamented
with Opaque figures in white enamel
cut in bas-relief. 1t is supposed TO
have been made at least 200 years be-
fore the Christian era, and brought TO
Rome as trophy from one of her nu-
merous conquests. The white enanled
figures upon the blue background have
been cut out the same as a cameo is
cut, which, taking into consideration
their intricacies and delicacy, and the
extreme hardness. of the glass, must
have been an enormous labor. When
discovered it was bought by the Bar
berini family; purchased from them
by Sir William Hamilton, and sold by
him to the Duchess of Portland. When
she died her son became its possessor
by paying S., AS for it. 1t is now in
the British museum. When first
placed in the museum it was left ex-
posed, and lunatic knocked it down
and shattered it. 1t has been care
fully restored, however, and is now
cautiously looked after. A copy of it,
made by gravers and chisels, is valued
at $4,000, and took two years to finish.
The vase is considered the chef d'csawre
of ancient ornamental glass manufac-
ture. WILLIAM STATE.