Porphyry vase
Ca. 1650.Galería Jónica Planta Principal Norte
This vessel is made of porphyry, a material greatly valued since classical antiquity because of its rarity and great beauty for use in ornamental pieces intended for the palaces of nobility and members of the court. Its decoration with curved grooves and the double handles in the form of snakes correspond to a classicist tendency that merged models recouped from antiquity with esthetic motives belonging to the baroque. The collection of porphyry vessels in the Prado Museum consists of pieces Felipe IV purchased from Roman antique dealers via his ambassadors and viceroys, and at the nobility´s auctions.
This two-handled, lidded vase with striated decoration is, almost certainly, one of the six that decorated the Hall of Mirrors in the Alcázar in Madrid and is depicted on one of the side tables in that room in Juan Carreño de Miranda’s portrait of Charles II painted around 1673 (P-7100).
