Venetian art nouveau glass

Magazine Antiques, Feb, 2000 by Sheldon Barr

The bowl and foot of the elegant vase shown in Plate IX are formed of blown aventurine glass, which is exceedingly difficult to work. [8] They are united by a pink glass European dragon. The intentional tilt of the bowl had never been seen in the traditional glass production of Venice.

The boat-shaped vessel known as a nef shown in Plate VII is wholly created of cristallo glass. Its entire surface is covered with small bumps of opaque turquoise glass, a technique perfected by the Barovier family of Murano and known as granzioli. The nef is embellished with two European dragons, and an amusing open-mouthed dragon's head forms the spout.

The nef shown in Plate XII, of cristallo and blue glass, is a reasonably accurate copy of a sixteenth-century original in Murano's Museo Vetrario. However, the cornucopia finial of the original has been replaced by a pink-tongued dragon. All the factories created their interpretations of the sixteenth-century nef in many sizes and color combinations. This one is identical to one illustrated in the catalogue issued about 1895 by the Testolini stabilimento. No specific factory attribution is possible since Testolini bought its glass from many Murano factories.

Eventually a lively competition developed between Murano's blowers, who conccoted ever more complex zoomorphic combinations, created in elaborate combinations of colors and techniques with mold-and free-blown elements executed oddly colored mottled or streaked glass, multi-colored vetro a retorli (twisted fillgress) [9] or retricello, or temperamental blown aventurine glass. Nothing seemed too difficult or too bizarre. In Plate XVII a twisting European dragon peers coyly out from behind the body of the vetro a reporti jug.

A recently discovered catalogue of about 1895 issued by Fratelli Toso, the oldest glasshouse in Venice at the time, contains an astounding variety of elaborate exotic animal pieces. The contemporary catalogue issued by th eTestolini stabilimento (see Figs. 1-3) illustrates even more. At the 1895 Esposizione di scelti artistici ed oggetti attini in Murano, critics were of mixed opinion regarding the elaborate exotic creations. Some found them admirable, and, while Vittorio Zanetti, Abbot Vincenzo Zanetti's nephew, was awarded a gold medal cum laude "For the rare mastery with which he sculpted [blew] his animals," [10] others condemned the "heavy decoration with animals, dominated by the strange and the grotesque." [11] Not one critic, however, diminished the incredible manual dexterity needed to create them. As described in the Magazine of Art in 1890:

Each separate article is usually made by one man, with the aid of an assistant. The first shapes the lump of glass with the blow-pipe, and, as it gains form and consistency, the assistant hands various lumps of fiery glass on the end of an iron rod. From the luminous spot [the "glory hole"] the craftsman, with another iron tool, takes little bits and fixes eyes and tongues on his dragons and sea monsters, jewels, varying tints of color to his goblets, and handles andstems to his vases. Touches of gold foil, too, are deftly added, while some parts may be stamped with impressions of masks. Now he seizes his iron shears and cuts down one part, next he prinches another into shape, while between each operation the article still fixed to the blow-pipe is held for an instant in the blazing furnace. All this time is has to be twisted and turned a round, test the glass, being only partially cooled, should fall to one side and be spoiled. [12]