Definition: Vase

vase (v³s, v³z, väz) n. An open container, as of glass or porcelain, used for holding flowers or for ornamentation.

Portland vase is a Roman vase (1st century AD) of dark blue glass decorated with white figures, the finest surviving Roman example of cameo glass. Originally owned by the Barberini family (and sometimes called the Barberini Vase), it came into the possession of the Duke of Portland in the 18th century. The vase has been extensively copied, particularly during the Victorian period. The most accurate copies, however, were those made byJosiah Wedgwood, who, in 1790, copied it in jasperware with white figures in relief, and by John Northwood of Stourbridge, Eng., who copied it in glass (completed 1876). In 1845, while in the British Museum (where it is now), the original vase was smashed, necessitating skillful and painstaking restoration. (see also Index:

Vase paintings.
Late Minoan. The light-on-dark style of pottery was by now replaced by dark-on-light ornamentation. At first (roughly 1600-1500 BC), curvilinear patterns and simple designs of vegetation predominated. Between 1500 and about 1450 BC, however, there flourished theMarine style, possibly the most successful of all Minoan pottery styles. Nearly every form of marine life is accurately reproduced in a riotous allover arrangement: octopuses, argonauts, dolphins, and fish, against a background of rocks and waves. In the 70 or 80 years after 1450 BC, the spontaneity of the early Marine style degenerated into a rigid formality. Subsequently, Late Minoan pottery became little more than a provincial version of Mycenaean ware.
Late Mycenaean.

For about two and a half centuries after around 1600 BC, Mycenaean pottery painting echoed Minoan. After the eclipse of Knossos, however, Minoan influence declined, and Mycenaean potters fell back on their own resources. Minoan plant and marine motifs became simpler until virtually unrecognizable as representations of anything in real life. A figure style also developed. Adapted at first from frescoes and later from textiles, this style is seldom successful, however. Unlike the classical Greeks who came later, the Mycenaean potters were not able to adapt their fresco style so as to form a convincing figure style for vases.
Late Cypriot.

The Cypriot pottery of the Late Bronze Age is of three main kinds: (1) a handmade ware with a glossy brown surface called base-ring ware, vases and statuettes of humans and animals being the most common examples of this type, (2) white-slip ware, in which handmade vases of a leathery appearance are decorated with patterns in black on a white slip (slip is liquid clay covering the pottery body), and (3) local imitations, made on the wheel, of imported Mycenaean pottery, which was evidently popular.