Word: severus
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...admired object was the Portland Vase, a ten-inch-high urn of deep blue glass, decorated with white cameo figures of Peleus and Thetis. According to common, if unproved, legend, it was supposed to have come from the sarcophagus of the 3rd Century Roman Emperor Alexander Severus and to have once contained his ashes. Sir William Hamilton, otherwise known to history as the husband of Horatio Nelson's mistress, Emma, had brought it to England in 1770. Josiah Wedgwood had copied it, the Duchess of Portland had bought it (whence its present name), and her son had handed...