Warwick Vase

On display at the Burrell Collection near Glasgow
Engraving of the Warwick Vase, 1821, intended as a craftsman's pattern

The Warwick Vase is an ancient Roman marble (partially restored) vase with Bacchic ornament that was discovered at Hadrian's Villa, Tivoli about 1771 by Gavin Hamilton,[1] a Scottish painter-antiquarian and art dealer in Rome, and is now in the Burrell Collection in Glasgow in Scotland.

The vase was found in the silt of a marshy pond at the low point of the villa's extensive grounds, where Hamilton had obtained excavation rights and proceeded to drain the area. Hamilton sold the fragments to Sir William Hamilton, British envoy at the court of Naples from whose well-known collection it passed to his nephew George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick, where it caused a sensation.[2]

  1. ^ For Gavin Hamilton's role in the art market for antiquities, see David Irwin, "Gavin Hamilton: archaeologist, painter and dealer", Art Bulletin 44 (1962:87–102.
  2. ^ Of Sir William's antiquities, only the Portland Vase rivalled it in public eclat.