About 1771, Gavin Hamilton, a Scottish painter, antiquarian, and art dealer in Rome, discovered an ancient Roman marble vase with ornaments celebrating Bacchus, god of wine. He excavated the enormous vase from the silt in a marshy pond at Hadrian’s villa in Tivoli. Once the vase passed to the collection of George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick, it caused an aesthetic sensation in Great Britain. Dubbed “the Warwick vase,” it was regularly copied in many mediums, such as the silver and porcelain versions displayed here.