A VENINI vase by Fulvio Bianconi from his Pezzato series in Arlechino color, circa 1950, valued at $15,000 to $18,000. (Photograph courtesy of Barry Friedman, Ltd.)

AN AURELIANO Toso vase designed by Dino Martens, circa 1950s.(Photograph courtesy of The Loschs.)

Cappellin-Venini hired as its art director Vittorio Zecchin, a painter from a family of glassblowers and a former Barovier collaborator. He advanced the art by mining the past. Zecchin copied the fluid-lined, subtly tinted glass vessels depicted in paintings by such Venetian Old Masters as Titian and Veronese. These classic forms immediately won acclaim for the firm. Despite their quick success, Cappellin and Venini, both strong personalities, did not mesh well. They severed the partnership after just four years and established individual workshops.

The glass objects Zecchin made for Cappellin-Venini, and later M.V.M. Cappellin, are among the most exquisite examples of handblown glass crystal ever produced. Prices are beginning to move, according to Oliveira, who notes that examples that just a year ago might have been had for $3,500 now cost $6,000. The most rare of Zecchin’s pieces run up to $12,000. At least for now, however, these pieces remain undervalued as most collectors gravitate to more colorful works.

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.

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