Good Glue

On a quiet afternoon 104 years ago, browsers in the British Museum were "attracted from their agreeable pursuit," as the London Times reported, "by hearing a loud crash, and on hastening to ascertain the cause they found that which was the 'admired of all admirers' . . . scattered in fragments."

The 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 it over to the museum. That day in 1845, it lay in 300 little pieces, deliberately smashed by a drunk.

A museum restorer put it together again as best he could, but he had to leave out many of the blue chips--he just couldn't find a way to fit them in. Recently 30 of the surplus chips, carefully saved all these years, turned up in a private collection. They gave the museum's present restorer, 51-year-old Jack Axtell, a good reason for restoring the Portland Vase all over again. Considering that it is valued at over $100,000, it was worth another try.

Axtell soaked the urn in water and alcohol for three weeks, until the old glue yielded. Then he put it together again, working in about a dozen of the 30 chips that the first man had left out. The added bits did not help much, but Axtell's colorless glue was a great improvement. Before, the breaks in the glass had been apparent several feet away; last week, with the urn again on exhibition in the British Museum, it took a sharp eye to detect the breaks at all.

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