Vase, England, blank made by Thomas Webb & Sons (Stourbridge) design 'arranged' by J. Jones and engraved by Paul Oppitz (London) for W. J. Copeland and Sons (Stoke-on-Trent), 1872-1873

Engraved colourless glass vase with two "rope-twist" handles. Design "arranged"by J. Jones, and engraved by Paul Oppitz for W. J. Copeland and Sons.

Sir Richard Wallace (1818-1890) owned a small collection of contemporary British glass which relates to his cultural and philanthropic interests. Wallace was a highly regarded and influential member of the art Establishment, serving as a trustee of the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery and having an extensive knowledge of the European art world, developed through his many years of living in Paris. He was appointed to the Royal Commission Committee for the Fine Arts for both the Vienna Universal Exhibition (1873) and the Paris Universal Exhibition (1878). It was from these exhibitions that Wallace acquired 19th-century glass, most notably this 'Copeland Vase'. W. T. Copeland & Sons commissioned Paul Oppitz (1827-1894) to engrave the vase with a design after a grotesque ornamental print depicting the themes of water and the fertile earth by the French designer Jean Berain (1640-1711) for their display at the Vienna exhibition. According to a letter Oppitz wrote to Alfred Copeland, dated c.1873, the design on the ‘two handled jug’ took him 243 days to engrave. The glass blank was produced by Thomas Webb and Sons of Stourbridge, and was unusually heavy to take such fine engraving, causing great difficulties for Oppitz. He stated that the vase was ‘the finest and most tedious work what has ever come out of an engravers hands…’. The piece received much acclaim, and caught Wallace’s attention. Once displayed in Hertford House, the vase would have complimented the Boulle marquetry in his collection, which was inspired in part by Berain.
Amongst the 16th- and 17th-century glass listed in Wallace’s Modern Gallery in the 1890 inventory of Hertford House there was ‘An engraved claret bottle, with double handles’. This was almost certainly the Copeland Vase. Also in the case were ‘A pair of decanters engraved, mounted with gilt metal’. Neither the bottle nor the decanters found their way into the Wallace Collection. At the time of Lady Wallace’s bequest to the nation in 1897, glasses produced just 20 years previously may well have been considered as modern, functional pieces rather than as works of art. The Wallace’s secretary and major beneficiary, John Murray Scott, who oversaw the fulfillment of the bequest, generally excluded modern objects. These were in most cases transferred to his ownership.

Bought by the V&A in 1961 from the glass dealer Arthur Churchill Ltd, for 40.

Oppitz (1827-1894) was an independent glass-engraver working in London. He came to Britain in 1845 from his native Novy Bor, in Northern Bohemia as an economic migrant. He became naturalised British in 1853 and married Sarah Holland three years later.

This vase won a Bronze Medal at the Vienna Exhibition of 1873 where Sir Richard Wallace bought it. J. Jones, an artist employed by the Copeland glassworks in London, made the original design, which consisted of intricate flowing lines known as arabesques. There is a copy of it in the V&A collections. The decoration on the finished piece shows that Paul Oppitz, who engraved the design on the vase, added some fine detail and the winged beasts to the original design.

CIRC.15-1961