MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
EVEN the most timid person derives pleasure from sudden destruction. In fairs and amusement parks there is often a booth or side-show where for a few pence one is permitted to hurl hard objects at plates, teapots, cream-jugs and sugar-basins until they smash. Those people who enjoy attributing quite natural impulses to subconscious sexual perversions will insist that the satisfaction caused by such operations arises from the release of hidden sadistic urges. I am, I trust, adeqtately aware of my own eccentricities and I am quite positive that sadism is not among them; yet seldom can I resist the temptation of bursting a paper bag. It may be that sensations of amusement are provoked when we suddenly deflate the inflated, creating thereby the situation defined by Herbert Spencer as " a descending incongruity." It may be that a reversion to childhood impels us to enjoy an unexpected noise. But clumsy people will agree with me that the main pleasure we extract from destroying things on purpose comes as compensation for the frequent occasions when we break things by mistake. Yet these arguments do not explain why, on Friday, February 7th, 1845, Mr. William Lloyd, a young scenic painter, smashed the Portland vase. He himself, when sum- moned before the magistrates, stated that he had at the time " only partially recovered " from a prolonged bout of intem- perance and was in a condition of what we should (or might) today call "Angst." He was fined £5 for his offence and there- after, to my regret, disappears from history. The incident at that date aroused public indignation. The Museum authorities were criticised for not taking adequate measures to protect the precious objects entruste&to their care. And a- Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries wrote a letter to The Times newspaper urging that Mr. William Lloyd should be subjected to " a severe public flagella/km." No effect was given to this recommendation.
* * * * My interest in the episode has been revived by reading this week a really sparkling monograph on the Portland vase, written by Mr. Wolf Mankowitz and published by the firm of Andre Deutsch for the sum of thirty shillings. So persuasive did I find the style and scholarship of Mr. Mankowitz that I made a special journey to Bloomsbury in order to con- vince myself that I had been wrong in not agreeing with Sir William Hamilton that the Portland vase was second only to the Belvedere Apollo as a masterpiece of plastic art. There it sits in a glass case in the Edward VII gallery, recovered from the assault of Mr. William Lloyd, and shining with all its incrustations in a December fog. Much as I appreciated the astonishing skill that had gone to the chiselling of the trees and figures, I preserved my original impression that the Port- land vase is'an ill-shaped and over-decorated bottle that has somehow gone wrong. It may be that in its original form it 'comprised a sweeping base such as may have rectified its present squat proportions and better adjusted the decorations to the shape. It may be that I am not attuned to the cameo, of that our modern taste is affected more by satisfactory form than by even the most intricate workmanship. Or it may be that the -Portland vase, displayed as it now is among many masterpieces of truly Hellenic art, seems to us unworthy of a classical period. Confronted by the grace and splendour of Athenian mixing-bowls, wine-jars and drinking-cups, it appears to me, if Mr. Mankowitz will forgive my saying so, dumpy.
Sir William Hamilton, an optimistic man, was convinced that the vase dated from the fourth century B.C. and had once contained the ashes of Alexander the Great. Later historians contended that it was the cinerary urn of the Emperor Alexander Severus and his mother Julia Mammaea, and had been unearthed when the Monte del Grano sepulchre was exca- vated by the Barberini Pope, Urban VIII. Yet in the detailed account of this excavation there is no mention of any urn, vase or bottle, and we must conclude that no record exists as to how the object came to form part of the Barberini collection. All we know is that it was bought in 1780 by a Scottish expert of sthe name of James Byres and sold by him to Sir William Hamilton, who in his turn disposed of it to the Duchess of Portland. (Modern specialists have denied, its imperial origin and have decided, probably rightly, that it is a product of the glass-bazaar of Alexandria, dating probably from the century between 50 B.C. and 50 A.D.) A tremendous controversy then arose regarding the scenes so accurately depicted upon the surface of the vase. To the inexpert eye the theme of the story appears sufficiently obvious. In one section we have a lady re:lining in obvious despair, with the torch of love• reversed in dejection. In the next section we have a picture of the same lady affectionately welcoming her lover, while the infant Eros floats above them with his bow and arrows waving jubilantly. An elderly gentleman, in the attitude of Rodin's Penseur, con- templates with reserve this happy picture of true sweet-hearting. The simplicity of the story is however complicated by two inconvenient adjuncts. The lady, while welcoming her lover, is nursing a dog-fazed serpent on her knee. And the young man, as he steps forward, is so shy as to seem almost reluc- tant. How are we to account for these incongruous symbols ?
All manner of explanations have been advanced. Mont- faucon contended that the serpent was really a swan, and that the story must therefore be concerned with Leda. Others have identified the picture as depicting the relations of Jason with Medea, of Theseus with Amphitrite, of Jupiter Ammbn with Olympias. Miss Meteyard dismissed all these mythologies and concluded that the vase represented no more than " a heathen and poetised allegory of the trials of human life and its close." Mr. Thomas Windus supported an even more brilliant interpretation. According to him, the vase was in fact the cinerary urn of Marcus Aurelius and Princess Faustina, and the scene depicted was that of the great cure practised on the latter by Galen of Pergamum. Mr. Windus recognised in the pensive figure of the elderly gentleman " a medical appear- ance, similar to that of a coin of Hippocrates or a coin of Cos," and he then remembered the gossip about Princess Faustina and the acrobat Pylades. For some time the health of the Princess had been causing anxiety to her parents, and Galen was called in to advise. He diagnosed that Faustina was wasting away for love of the acrobat and recommended that they should be united. This certainly explains the depres- sion manifest in the first scene and the jubilation expressed in the second. It also explains the embarrassed reluctance of the young Pylades. But it certainly does not explain the serpent with the dog's face. Mr. Mankowitz, therefore, rejects the Windus theory as " inacceptable." I am sorry about this, since it accords with at least a third of the evidence.
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The scholars have now decided that the scene represents the marriage of Peleus and Thetis. As an interpretation this seems dull, unimaginative and, I hope, incorrect. After all, Peleus was the stoutest of Myrmidons, who had already com- mitted at least three murders and who had only won the Nereid Thetis after tremendous struggles with her shifting shape; he was not a man thus to dawdle towards the nuptial couch. Moreover, the point about this wedding was that they forgot to invite Eris, who thereupon threw an apple of discord into the feast. I do not think that an Alexandrian craftsman would have omitted from his design so important an apple. If I cared for the Portland vase, I should persist in believing that the story represents the passion of Faustina for Pylades, an infatuation ably cured by Galen. But I do not care for the Portland vase.
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