A CLOSER LOOK
Recognizing the intrinsic value of pieces such as these comes with connoisseurship. In this field, that means becoming versed in its history, its techniques and its virtuosi: glassblowers and art directors alike. Collectors must acquire this knowledge when trying to unravel the tangle of talents who moved from one of the workshops to another, or sometimes worked for several at the same time. Even for well-schooled amateurs, unsigned pieces can be difficult to attribute because workshops often copied successful designs or techniques developed by others. Sometimes the same master glassblower crafted pieces for various shops. Workshops also reissued their own classic designs. Venini, for example, still produces the Fazzoletti, or “handkerchief,” vase, which it introduced in 1948. However, only the early versions, made in several vitreous textures, retain their value in the collectibles market.
 | | A FRATELLI Toso vase in Novocento style, circa 1930s. (Photograph courtesy of Barry Friedman, Ltd.) |
Disreputable dealers have been known to change the markings on vessels such as these in order to pass them off as originals. These deceptions shook the market in the late 1990s, particularly after a German auction house mistakenly put several fakes on the block. Such chicanery occurs in any collectibles market, especially one that has not matured and is populated with dilettantes. “You can easily get fooled,” says Gary Gand, a Chicago collector known for his keen eye. He advises aspiring collectors to read the new books on the field, and to find an expert to help them both in their buying and to school their eye. “There are only a handful of reputable dealers, and they are the ones to talk to, not specialists at auction houses. They have to be expert in too many fields.”
In 1925, Venini hired Napoleone Martinuzzi as the art director for his new workshop. A sculptor by training, he experimented with techniques that had fallen into disuse, such as pasta di vetro, a glass paste, with which he crafted glossy, opaque-hued objects. He also popularized pulegoso, an opaque glass with a spongy consistency. His five-handled amphora remains one of the finest examples of this technique. As there are just five in existence, these pieces may cost anywhere between $50,000 and $100,000, depending on the quality of the example and, if purchased at auction, the fever of the bidding. | | A VENINI Mermaid torso designed by Fulvio Bianconi from the Sirena series, circa 1950s. (Photograph courtesy of The Loschs.) |
Designers created something of a scandal in the 1920s by exploring the properties of this opaque glass. Venetian glass, after all, had historically been prized for its lightness and transparency. This did not stop the new art director at Cappellin, the young Modernist architect Carlo Scarpa, from experimenting with opaque glass forms. His Fenici series employed the ancient Egyptian technique of core-formed glass vessels. Threads of molten glass in contrasting opaque colors were wrapped around an earthen form, and while still liquid, pulled into rippling shapes across the surface. Exquisite examples range in price upward of $40,000.
Scarpa, who would serve as Venini’s art director from 1933 to 1947, is considered the greatest and most prodigious innovator in modern Italian glass—which is why most of his works are priced at a premium. Yet it is still possible to find some highly affordable pieces. A fine small example of mezza filigrana may be had for less than $3,000, because this 1930s series was also produced in a large edition.
During the 1930s, Scarpa also explored sommerso, a technique involving the repeated dipping of a glass object into crucibles of different colored crystal to form a vessel of impressive weight and polychromatic dimension. Such pieces typically fetch around $30,000. Flavio Poli, the art director of a rival furnace, Seguso Vetri d’Arte, was designing similar pieces, often using the same glassmakers. His equally beautiful vessels can be had for around $5,000. Scarpa would go on to experiment with a variety of techniques: corroso, battuto, a fasce colorate, a pennellate, variegati and murrine. The latter, an ancient technique, was reinvented by Scarpa to mirror trends in abstract painting. These often striking works, mostly plates and platters, are surprisingly thin and semitransparent because they were finished on a grinding wheel. Among Scarpa’s most acclaimed achievements, they are priced accordingly, from $20,000 to $100,000.
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