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Author Topic: Question: The difference between pulegoso and bollicine glass?  (Read 10737 times)

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Offline dorian_graye

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I have a couple of pieces and I'd like to know how to describe them.  But, I thought maybe someone could explain the difference before I went through the trouble of photographing, resizing, and uploading.  Thanks!

Offline TxSilver

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Re: Question: The difference between pulegoso and bollicine glass?
« Reply #1 on: May 14, 2010, 02:37:26 PM »
http://www.the-loschs.com/ittec.html has a list of some of the Italian techniques, incluing bollicine and pulegoso. The techniques are in alphabetical order, with a short description of how the technique is done. Hope this helps.
Anita
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Offline TxSilver

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Re: Question: The difference between pulegoso and bollicine glass?
« Reply #2 on: May 20, 2010, 02:01:53 AM »
I've been pondering this question more tonight. I know, get a life! Anyway... I wondered how one could tell the difference in the two techniques. They are both bubble filled glass. According to the definition, pulegoso should be rough and often pitted on the surface. I checked a piece of Martinuzzi pulegoso I have and found that, even though the bubbles were small in this piece, the surface was rough and there were small pits over the surface of the glass.

Does anyone have a Scarpa bollicine they can check for comparison?
Anita
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Offline dorian_graye

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Re: Question: The difference between pulegoso and bollicine glass?
« Reply #3 on: May 20, 2010, 02:09:37 AM »
Hi.  Thanks for your reply.  I have several pieces of glass that I will upload in the next few days for a comparison.....

Offline dorian_graye

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Re: Question: The difference between pulegoso and bollicine glass?
« Reply #4 on: May 21, 2010, 04:40:25 PM »
So here are a few examples that I have.  The red vessels, I'm guessing, would be considered "bollicine" as there are no craters in the glass and the bubbles are encased.  The blue dish has many bubbles in the glass, but it is pitted and has some craters.  I'm guessing that the dish would be considered "pulegoso". Would I be correct?

Offline TxSilver

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Re: Question: The difference between pulegoso and bollicine glass?
« Reply #5 on: May 22, 2010, 12:03:54 AM »
Correct on the blue. The jury is still out on bollicine.

It is difficult to dig up anything on bollicine glass other than definition. Two authors include bollicine pieces with sommerso, but the glass had other inclusions, so I could draw no conclusions. Probably bollicine doesn't open to the surface and is sometimes cased. I definitely wouldn't quote this since I have only a vague idea of what I am talking about.  :spls2: I wish aa or another glassmaker was in the Murano group.
Anita
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Offline langhaugh

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Re: Question: The difference between pulegoso and bollicine glass?
« Reply #6 on: May 22, 2010, 03:58:44 PM »
You're not alone in your pondering, Anita. (There's a song in there, I'm sure.) I've spent a few hours over the years looking for what the difference might be between bollicine and pulegosa and I've never found a satisfactory answer, which tells me that there isn't a huge difference.The terms even mean the same thing: bollicina is bubble in Italian and puleghe is bubble in the Venetian dialect. Venini: Catalogue Raisonne and Venetian Glass: An American Collection both give pretty much the same definition of pulegosa, a technique where bubbles are created by adding a substance such as gas/petrol to the glass. Nether gives a definition of bollicine, although the Losch site does and the defintion is pretty close to the pulegosa definition without mentioning gas.

I've come to the conclusion that the basic technique is adding another substance to the glass that creates a chemical reaction, leading to the formation of gas bubbles. The size and shape of the bubbles vary according to what you add to the glass. Gas/petrol creates a very frothy bubble glass, as you see in Murano pulegosa and in the 40's Skrdlovice glass. Other substances that I've hears been added are some sodium compounds, potato peelings, and pieces from an ash tree. I'm sure there's more. Another variation is caused by where and when you add the second substance. The gasoline/petrol is added to the the glass in the pot, for example. The second chemical can also be spread on a marver (not gas, of course) and picked up on the parison, which is then dipped in the pot. This creates the localized bubbles you see in some Scandinavian pieces.

I'm not sure about whether or not the glass being cased makes a difference. I think the early Venini pieces weren't cased, which led to the pitted surface you talked about Anita, but I've got some cased pulegosa. It also depends on whether pulegosa is the only technique being used on the piece. The early Venini pieces were focused on the shape and texture of the piece, so no casing. Other pulegosa had layers of colours or frit added to the pulegosa so they were cased.

I think you're right, Anita, when you say bollicine was often used in conjunction with the addition of inclusions or with sommerso, which might give us an idea of when we should use the term bollicine. But it doesn't give us a term that encompasses the range of  glass with bubbles we see, unless that term is pulegosa.

Anita, and you thought you were the only one in need of a life! I think of it the mental exercise I need to prolong my life.


David





 
My glass collection is at https://picasaweb.google.com/lasilove

Offline TxSilver

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Re: Question: The difference between pulegoso and bollicine glass?
« Reply #7 on: May 22, 2010, 08:02:58 PM »
David, do you think pulegoso is a special form of bollicine done by using volatile compounds?
Anita
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Offline langhaugh

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Re: Question: The difference between pulegoso and bollicine glass?
« Reply #8 on: May 22, 2010, 10:22:49 PM »
Anita:

I think that's an interesting way of encapsulating the differences. However, I don't think I see pulegosa as a subset of bollicine, but one of the a range of reactions that creates bubbles. Pulegosa seems to have been the first, but others followed. I suppose you could argue that, judging by the definitions in Loschs, bollicine is a subset of pulegosa.

David
My glass collection is at https://picasaweb.google.com/lasilove

Offline langhaugh

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Re: Question: The difference between pulegoso and bollicine glass?
« Reply #9 on: May 24, 2010, 01:25:42 AM »
This question has been niggling at me so I've done a little more research.  Pulegosa was the term Martinuzzi used for his bubbled glass, which he developed in 1926-8. There's some evidence that he followed the work of the Sala family, who had developed a bubble glass in 1919 in Paris. Marintinuzzi's work was introduced in 1928-30 for Venini. In 1932 Scarpa designed a vase "a bollicine," again for Venini. Ricke and Schmitt  note in "Italian Glass" that "a bollicine" was "finely bubbled glass," whereas Martinuzzi's pulegosa was "more coarsely bubbled."  So I think that the two techniques were originally proprietary names used by the designers, but which have been extended to cover the basic technique, which, by the 1030's, was being used elsewhere. Other makers have occasionally used the two terms, although it may be that writers from outside the company have used the terms simply to describe the product. For example, I found pictures of Poli pieces for Seguso Veri d'Arte with bubbles, some called pulegosa and some called a bollicine. The ones named a bollicine seemed to be cased and often use gold foil. Other companies were also using bubbles. Many of Barovier and Toso's lines from the 30 ' and 40's have bubbles in them, which were created by throwing sodium silicate into the pot. They didn't use either term butcrated their own propriety name for each line.

I think I was right in the beginning to say that the basic technique involves adding a substance to the glass causing a chemical reaction that releases bubbles into the glass. It would be good if we had another umbrella word to cover the range of terms. Perhaps there's an idea for a contest there. 

David
My glass collection is at https://picasaweb.google.com/lasilove

 

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