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this period is particularly prized, as are the pieces that were made using a new technique developed by Toso for coloring hot glass.


The post-war years were unquestionably Murano’s most glorious period. In the 1940s, Barovier & Toso produced thick, clear pieces with textured surfaces called Lenti, as well as the exceptional and highly colorful vases in the now-rare Oriente series. In the 1950s, Barovier & Toso would introduce flat-side cylindrical vases in basketweave cane patterns or checkerboard designs.


Seguso Vetri d’Arte was another firm that made strides in the 1930s but really came into its own after the war. Some of its thick, organic-shaped vases were three-sided, others were twisted and pulled until they resembled an elephant’s trunk. Salviati’s Dino Martens brought a more painterly sensibility to Murano glass, using vase and jug forms as canvases for vividly colored abstract-expressionistic statements that were perfectly in tune with the mid-century modern aesthetic of the day. Of the post-war Murano glass factories, Venini is perhaps the most highly regarded and certainly the best known. In addition to boasting the talents of Paolo Venini himself, who perfected the sommerso technique in the 1930s and used the traditional technique of inciso to create vases that appeared to glow from within, the company attracted architects and artists such as Carlo Scarpa, Fulvia Bianconi and Gio Ponti to Murano.


Scarpa was considered the Frank Lloyd Wright of glass, which is to say that he injected modernism into the look of this traditional medium. After Scarpa left Venini in the 1940s to


devote himself to architecture, his son Tobia


joined the firm. Bianconi took his background as an illustrator and applied it to glass, using the emphatic forms produced by Venini’s glassblowers as


armatures for his witty explorations of color - patchworks, horizontal stripes and polka dots were particular favorites.


Ponti was an architect by training but Venini brought out the painter in him. For Venini, he designed flared vases constructed of nothing but multi-colored lengths of cane, or bottles wrapped in frilly spirals to suggest the lines of a skirt. Even his most ostensibly conservative pieces contained colorful twists, such as a bulbous-bottomed bottle whose body is perfectly bisected by a shift from red to green.


In today’s market the firm of Vistosi are now hailed as one of the must haves for any collection with the production of their comic Pulcini glass birds created by architect Alessandro Pianon. There were five created in orange, green, blue, purple and sage and together form a happy little band. Today these birds fetch anywhere between £3000 and £10,000 depending on the model and continue to rise in value year on year! Eagle eyed collectors out there may be lucky enough to find one hiding in their local charity shop like a recent client who managed to pick two up for a modest £8 each!


WHERE TO START. . . . .


There are several criteria to reflect on when first considering collecting in any field, but especially art glass. Firstly and most importantly - do you like the piece? Far too many people fall


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BUYERS GUIDE COL L ECT ING I TAL IAN GLAS S


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