Porcinari
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Hamilton purchased at Naples, in 1766, a collection of Greek vases belonging to the Porcinari family, and gradually formed a museum which at the beginning of 1772 included 730 vases, 175 terracottas, about 300 specimens of ancient glass, 627 bronzes (about half, arms and armour), 150 ivories, about 150 gems, 143 gold ornaments, more than 6,000 coins, including specimens from Magna Græcia, miscellaneous objects, and a few marbles. This collection he sold in 1772 to the trustees of the British Museum; it was purchased with a parliamentary grant of 8,400l. It formed the groundwork of the present department of Greek and Roman antiquities. In the library of that department is a manuscript inventory (a transcript from the original by Dr. Noehden) of the contents of the XIIth or 'Hamilton' Room in the British Museum as it was in 1824, also a manuscript inventory of the Hamilton gems (cp. 'An Abstract of Sir W. Hamilton's Collection of Antiquities' [London, 1772 (?)], fol., Brit. Mus. Cat.). The Hamilton Collection has now been incorporated with the other antiquities in the Museum. In 1766 and 1767 'D'Hancarville' (P. F. Hugues) had written and published an account of Hamilton's collection at that period, 'Antiquités etrusques, grecques et romaines' (text in French and English), 4 vols. Naples, 1766–7, fol.; 2nd edit. 4 vols. Florence, 1801–8. The cost of printing and illustrating the first edition, 6,000l., was borne by Hamilton, who was a patron of D'Hancarville and a believer in his fanciful theories. Hamilton liberally circulated proof-plates of the work, and those representing vases exercised much influence on Josiah Wedgwood, who said that in two years he had himself brought into England, by the sale of Wedgwood imitations of the Hamilton vases, three times as much as the 8,400l. paid for the antiquities by parliament. Hamilton was one of the first Englishmen who collected and appreciated Greek vases. He valued them chiefly as good models for modern artists, and is said to have ridiculed antiquarians by training (1780) his monkey to hold a coin-collector's magnifying glass.[1]
