# The Warwick Vase > Unknown Roman workshop (ancient carving); restored 1772-1774 by Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Guillaume Grandjacquet to designs attributed to Giovanni Battista Piranesi - 2nd century AD (ancient carving); restored 1772-1774 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/warwick-vase-workshop-and-restorers/warwick-vase-and-the-silver-reproductions/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-09-16 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Unknown Roman workshop (ancient carving); restored 1772-1774 by Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Guillaume Grandjacquet to designs attributed to Giovanni Battista Piranesi - **Date:** 2nd century AD (ancient carving); restored 1772-1774 - **Medium:** White marble (ancient core), with 18th-century Carrara marble additions supplying the missing foot, base and other losses - **Dimensions:** 294 x 195 x 195 cm (height x width x depth), per the Burrell Collection's own catalogue record - **Object type:** Antiquity - **Period:** Roman Imperial, 2nd century AD; restored and displayed as a Grand Tour trophy from 1774 - **Current location:** The Burrell Collection, Glasgow (Glasgow Museums / Glasgow Life, City of Glasgow) - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary A colossal marble drinking-vessel, nearly three metres high, assembled by a Scottish painter-dealer out of fragments dredged from a silted pond at Hadrian's Villa in 1769-70, then rebuilt into something more complete than anything actually found. Roughly two-thirds of what stands in Glasgow today is 18th-century Carrara marble carved to fill the gaps; only a scholarly monograph, not consulted for this record, could say exactly how much. It stood at Warwick Castle for two centuries as one of the single most famous objects Grand Tour Britain ever brought home, known to people who never saw the original only through Piranesi's engravings and through a wave of 19th-century silver, silver-gilt, bronze and porcelain copies that royal and private patrons commissioned to sit on their own sideboards.In 1977 the family that had owned it since 1774 sold it into a chain that was heading for New York, and a British export bar built the fundraising window that kept it in the country. It was not returned to Warwick Castle. It was bought outright in 1979 for the Burrell Collection in Glasgow, a different city and a different kind of institution from the one it had occupied for two hundred years, and it has never left.This record follows both halves of the story: the marble original's excavation, restoration and two changes of home, and the parallel industry of full-scale and reduced silver, silver-gilt and bronze reproductions that its fame generated, followed here through one specific and fully traceable example rather than treated as an undifferentiated tradition. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **2nd century AD** Unknown Roman patron, possibly associated with the villa complex at Tivoli `[unknown]` (origin) Carved as a large Bacchic marble krater in the Roman Imperial period. No inscription, patron's name or original setting is recorded; its findspot in a pond within Hadrian's Villa's grounds establishes only where it ended up, not necessarily where it was first displayed. - **2nd century AD-1769** Unrecorded `[unknown]` (gap) No owner, location or event is documented for roughly sixteen centuries. Hadrian's Villa was extensively spoliated for building stone and sculpture long before Hamilton's excavation, and how the vase's fragments came to rest in the Pantanello pond specifically is not explained in the sources consulted. - **1769-1770** Gavin Hamilton (excavator and dealer) `[documented]` (excavation) Found in fragments, missing its foot, base and at least one head, while Hamilton dug the drained bed of the Pantanello at the Villa Tiburtina (Hadrian's Villa), Tivoli. - **c. 1770-1774** Sir William Hamilton, British Envoy at Naples `[documented]` (purchase and restoration) Purchased the fragments from Gavin Hamilton and commissioned their restoration, completed 1772-1774, using a newly cut block of Carrara marble to supply the missing parts. The Burrell Collection credits the carving to Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Guillaume Grandjacquet to designs by Piranesi; other accounts credit James Byres instead. A commonly repeated figure of 300 pounds for the combined purchase and repair could not be verified against a primary source. - **c. 1774-1778** George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick `[documented]` (gift) Given, not sold, by his uncle Sir William Hamilton, after Hamilton failed to sell the restored vase to the British Museum. First recorded standing in the Earl's purpose-built conservatory at Warwick Castle in 1778. - **1778-1977** Earls of Warwick, Warwick Castle `[documented]` (display) Remained on view at Warwick Castle for approximately two centuries, becoming one of the best-known fixed points of British Grand Tour collecting and the direct source of the 19th-century reproduction industry covered in this record's narrative. - **1977-1978** A consortium of London dealers, then the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York `[documented]` (sale, pending export) Sold in 1977 by David Greville, then styled Lord Brooke (who did not become 8th Earl of Warwick until his father's death in 1984), to a consortium of London dealers, who resold it in 1978 to the Metropolitan Museum. The UK's Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art judged the vase to meet the Waverley criteria for national importance and deferred the export licence, opening a window for a British institution to raise matching funds. No sale price at either 1977 or 1978 stage was found in the sources consulted. - **1979-present** Burrell Collection (Glasgow Museums / Glasgow Life, City of Glasgow) `[documented]` (acquisition) Purchased outright by the Burrell Trustees in 1979 with grant aid from the National Art Collections Fund, the Scottish Heritage Fund and two anonymous charities, after the British Museum declined right of first refusal on grounds of insufficient archaeological importance. Owned by the City of Glasgow since, not on loan, displayed on its original pedestal in the Burrell Collection courtyard under inventory number 42.20. The purchase price is not confirmed in any source this record could independently verify. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **1977-1979** Private treaty (no public auction), Sequential private sales: Lord Brooke to a dealer consortium (1977); the consortium to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1978); the Burrell Trustees' matching purchase after the UK export bar (1979) - Hammer: Not applicable - the marble original was never sold at public auction at any stage of its 1977-1979 departure from Warwick Castle. - With premium: Not applicable - No purchase figure for any of the three 1977-1979 transactions was found in the sources consulted for this record, despite an extensive search. This is recorded as a gap rather than filled with an unverified figure. - **1967-04-26** Christie's, London, , lot 98 - Hammer: Not found in the sources consulted for this record. - With premium: Not found in the sources consulted for this record. - Sale of Paul Storr's silver-gilt full-size Warwick Vase replica (hallmarked 1814-1815), made for Sir James McGrigor and descended in his family. Bought at this sale by Sir Arthur Gilbert; the piece passed to the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1996 as part of the Gilbert Collection gift. This is a different object from the marble original and from the Art Institute of Chicago's 1823-24 Storr vase; its 1967 hammer price is not published in the sources consulted here. ## Open questions - What precise fraction of the marble now on display is ancient Roman carving as against 18th-century Carrara restoration? No source consulted gives a percentage; the only characterisation found is the impressionistic 'a few ancient portions inserted here and there.' - Who actually carried out the 1772-1774 restoration? The Burrell Collection's own catalogue names Grandjacquet working to Piranesi's designs; several other, non-museum accounts instead credit James Byres alongside or instead of Grandjacquet, and do not mention Grandjacquet at all. - What did Sir William Hamilton actually pay for the fragments and their restoration? A figure of 300 pounds for purchase and repair appears in some dealer accounts of the vase but could not be verified against a primary source or the Wikipedia and Burrell Collection accounts consulted here. - What price was agreed for the vase at each stage of its 1977-1979 departure from Warwick Castle - the 1977 sale to a consortium of London dealers, the 1978 resale to the Metropolitan Museum, and the 1979 purchase by the Burrell Trustees? No figure for any of these three transactions was found in the sources consulted. - Is there a published petrographic or isotopic study identifying the geological source of the ancient marble, comparable to the sourcing studies that exist for other major Roman decorative marbles? None was found in the sources consulted for this record. - Did Elkington and Co., whose electrotype reproductions of other antique metalwork are extensively documented, ever produce an electrotype specifically of the Warwick Vase? No source consulted confirms this, and this record does not claim that one exists. - What became of the ancient head reported missing at the time of discovery? It is not established whether any head on the vase today is ancient, or whether all visible heads are 18th-century additions. ## Sources - [1] Glasgow Museums Collections Online, catalogue record for the Warwick Vase (id 40016), Burrell Collection. - [2] Wikipedia, 'Warwick Vase'. Tertiary source; flagged for replacement with the Burrell Collection's own published monograph (Richard Marks and Brian J. R. Blench, The Warwick Vase, Burrell Collection) or with Sir William Hamilton's original correspondence. - [3] The Johnston Collection, Melbourne, 'The Warwick Vase'. - [4] Koopman Rare Art, 'The Warwick Vase: Hamilton's Dig for Treasure'. Dealer account; flagged for replacement with an academic source on the Grandjacquet/Byres restoration question. - [5] Wikipedia, 'David Greville, 8th Earl of Warwick', for the 1967 transfer of Warwick Castle, the 1978 sale to the Tussauds Group, and the separate sale of the family art collection including the Warwick Vase. - [6] Glasgow's Cultural History, 'Gavin Hamilton (1723-98) and the Warwick Vase'. - [7] Art & the Country House, 'Saving Country Houses and their Collections in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries', for the export-bar mechanism and the Burrell Collection's counter-offer. - [8] Royal Collection Trust, catalogue entries for the Rundell, Bridge and Rundell Warwick Vase reproductions and the Crozatier bronze replica (RCIN 71431 and RCIN 71434). Direct access to these pages was blocked during this record's research; details are drawn from indexed summaries of the pages' own text and should be verified directly against rct.uk before further reliance. - [9] Victoria and Albert Museum, Explore the Collections, 'Replica of the Warwick Vase', Paul Storr, LOAN:GILBERT.829:2-2008. - [10] Victoria and Albert Museum, Explore the Collections, 'Wine Cooler', Paul Storr for Rundell, Bridge and Rundell, M.48C-1982. - [11] Wikimedia Commons, File:The Warwick Vase. Etching by G.B. Piranesi, ca. 1770. Wellcome L0021594.jpg, extmetadata (license CC BY 4.0). - [12] Wikimedia Commons, File:Warwick Vase Brockhaus 1837.jpg, extmetadata (license PD-Art). - [13] Wikimedia Commons, File:Warwick vase.jpg, William Vaughn Tupper scrapbook, 1891 (public domain, CC0 mark). - [14] Wikimedia Commons, File:Burrell Collection 20.JPG, photograph by Edwardx, 2014 (license CC BY-SA 3.0). - [15] Wikimedia Commons, File:The Warwick Vase (Side view) (6847758132).jpg, photograph by dun_deagh via Flickr, 2012 (license CC BY-SA 2.0). - [16] The Art Institute of Chicago, public API record for 'Warwick Vase', Paul Storr, 1823-24 (object 55512), used only to distinguish this piece from the V&A's 1814-1815 McGrigor vase; not used as an image source for this record. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.