FURTHER REFINEMENT
During the 1930s, many workshops, such as Seguso Vetri d’Arte, took note of the success of Venini and Cappellin and began navigating a fresh aesthetic course. World War II put some of these companies out of business, but many reorganized afterward, helping to spur 20 unparalleled years of artistry and invention. The Aureliano Toso workshop emerged as one of the most intrepid in the field during the 1950s, with Venetian painter Dino Martens serving as art director. Martens used a variety of traditional techniques—multicolored glass powders, avventurina (a glass paste with copper particles) and ornate canes of zanfirico and reticello glass—to create outrageously colorful, asymmetric vessels, rather like three-dimensional Abstract Expressionist paintings. Most were unique objects, produced as exhibition pieces. They are equally exemplary in price, with some reaching upward of $85,000. Larger edition works by Martens, such as his mezza filigrana pieces, have more earthly prices.VALUE JUDGEMENT: Interest is flourishing in modern Italian glass, crafted on the Venetian island of Murano during a four-decade period beginning in the 1920s. While many undervalued pieces lie waiting to be discovered, this pursuit requires exacting attention from investment-minded collectors. Becoming versed in the history, techniques and virtuosi of this field often spells the difference between a well-polished collection and dashed hopes. |
After the war, Scarpa left Venini to devote himself to architecture, and a young illustrator, Fulvio Bianconi, took over the workshop’s artistic vision. Bianconi often collaborated with Venini on such designs as the Fazzoletti vase, but he also created many superlative pieces on his own. Most remarkable are his 1950s series of pezzati vases, patchworks of different- colored glass. Visually stunning and distinctly modern in spirit, they have become icons of modern Italian glass. Pretty examples can be had for as little as $4,500, but the most dazzling can cost as much as $100,000.
In the 1950s, Ercole Barovier, of Barovier & Toso, developed a similar technique, tessere. These vases, quite beautiful, are more reasonably priced at between $2,000 and $8,000. A marvelous example may cost $15,000.
Paolo Venini died in 1959. Rather fittingly, his passing marked the waning of Murano’s artistic efflorescence. Some great works were still to be produced, especially at Venini’s furnace. With his Occhi series, Tobia Scarpa, Carlo’s son, took the murrine technique in an entirely new direction. Thomas Stearns, the first American to work in Murano, produced glass objects that merged sculptural concerns with color-field aesthetics. His extraordinary Doge’s Cap series is prized by collectors, with prices ranging from $12,000 to $60,000. But modern design and art were changing, and so was the marketplace for art glass. When the Venini family sold the company in 1985, the era came to an end. In the 1990s, of course, a new brand of art glass emerged from Murano; Paolo Venini’s granddaughter, Laura Diaz de Santillana, became one of its pioneers. But that is another collecting story. Marisa Bartolucci lives in New York, where she writes on a variety of cultural subjects. misab@rcn.com Additional Information
Collecting Counsel
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