Topic: Millefiori Paperweight

[TxSilver]

I recently bought a concentric paperweight. The bottom looks a lot like Murano (Fratelli Toso), but the weight is different than most I've seen. The murrines are large. The main difference is that the dome is low and the glass appears to be hand-polished. It is not smooth and rounded, but has a slightly uneven well-polished surface. To me it looks like it is an older paperweight. No signature. It is 3" in diameter and 1 3/4" tall. The murrines are set in multicolor frit that is very much like a Fratelli Toso paperweight. Does anyone know what this weight might be? TIA!

Anita

[glasstrufflehunter]

Those white canes do look like Fratelli Toso, but the weight is very different from any other FT I've seen.

The hand polishing on the dome could have been done to take out any chips or scratches. I have a couple Italian weights that have been repaired this way.

[TxSilver]

My thoughts were the same as yours about the appearance. I don't think that the dome was spot polished. The whole dome is crudely polished. I can almost see someone laboring at the polishing wheel (or however it was done) as I am holding it. I have the feeling that it is older than most of my other weights. It is a bit awkward looking and feeling, but it is an intriguing weight.

Anita

[KevinH]

The overal look of the cane set up suggests to me earlier 20th century, possibly Thuringia.

But I agree that that at least the white canes don't look "typically" in the Bohemian style. And the tightly packed coloured bits in the base are also not what I would normally expect for weights from that area and period.

[TxSilver]

I googled Thuringia and agree with you that it would not be typical for them. I guess for now we'll just have to lump it into an old millefiori category. I guess I need to add a good antique paperweight book to my fast-growing book collection.

Anita

[TxSilver]

I ran across a similarly shaped paperweight on eBay. It is item 150237393448. The canes are different, but the form and the ground are very much like mine. The weight on eBay has a South American import label on top of an old Aureliano Toso label. I wondered if mine might be A. Toso. Now I have a stronger feeling that it is. Maybe I'll be able to track it down now.

Anita

[KevinH]

Yes, same sort of thing. But are you sure that the "Made in Italy" label is for Aureliano Toso? I supppose that a company producing art glass and lighting could also have made paperweights, but I don't think it's a company I have read about in connection with weights.

[TxSilver]

Some companies used a certain paper label. This type label was used by Aureliano Toso, I believe up until the early 1950s. Heiremanns has it pictured in his Themes book. The Loschs also have it at their signature site: http://www.the-loschs.com/sigitaly.htm. The thing that I don't know is if A Toso is the only company that used this label. I think they are, but I am not sure.

A Toso did a lot of different things in the middle part of the century. I think that most of their everyday work was overshadowed by the major works of their lead designer, Dino Martens. I have run across a couple of bird paperweights recently by A Toso. They are nice, but rather unremarkable. If they had not had a label, I would have just considered them generic (in Murano terms this means no one knows who made them).

The reserve on the eBay weight must have been pretty high. I bid, but didn't reach it. I would have liked to have the weight for comparison, but not at too high of a price. 

Chasing that elusive reserve...
Anita