The 'Portland Vase' is probably the most celebrated masterpiece of Roman cameo glass in existence. It dates to the Augustan period, (27BC-14AD) and was discovered in 1582 inside a sarcophagus, on the outskirts of Rome. It was known by Grand Tourists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as the Barbarini Vase because of its presence in that family's collection. In the 1780s it was acquired by the renowned antiquarian Sir William Hamilton, who in turn, sold it to the Duchess of Portland. In 1810 it was leant to the British Museum for safekeeping, where, ironically thirty five years later it was smashed to pieces by a lunatic. The vase has subsequently undergone a series of restorations.