2-798-962 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Etruscan vases, Chinese vessels, &c., 1845. Items from the collection of British critic, travel writer and slaveowner William Beckford, who was also an art collector and patron of works of decorative art. After he died, the collection at his home Lansdown Tower just outside Bath was put up for sale. '...the Etruscan Vase is 17 inches high, very perfect, and of exquisite form, enriched with figures emblematic of the Eleusinian Mysteries. This is understood to have been purchased for the British Museum...two small Etruscan Vases: one, a beautifully-modelled head of Isis; the other, with equestrian figures-black on a red ground. Behind it is a very fine grey and blue crackle jar; and, to the left of it, a magnificent French porcelain, 20 inches high; flowers on a lapis-lazuli ground. To the right of the large Etruscan Vase is a smaller one, with gracefully-modelled handle'. From "Illustrated London News", 1845, Vol VII.