Glass Message Board

Pinkspoons, thanks for your help. I'm curious about your experience and expertise?

I've been a vintage retailer for well over a decade - mostly Scandinavian and Italian glass and lighting.

I'd also support what Sue says - try to handle as much glass as possible and you'll build a 'feel' for what is/isn't right (although even after years at it, it's still very possible to make some forehead-slapping mistakes). As Sue also says, regular trips to homeware shops (TK Maxx, Ikea, etc...) are helpful, too - Chinese-made glass from ten years or so ago used to be obviously Chinese (garish colours, wonky or ugly shapes, poorly-made, poorly-finished, low quality glass), but many of their glassworks have really upped their game and can be near-indistinguishable in terms of technique and finish from half-decent Murano or Scandinavian glass.

  You need to visit fairs and see and handle as much (properly identified) glass as you can. Visit studios and watch the masterglassmakers at work. Talk to people who might know stuff.
Learning as much about glassmaking as you can, does give you a good idea of what is easy or difficult to achieve, which helps you to judge quality.

There's really nothing can substitute for getting your hands on the glass and getting an idea of how it feels.
Lots of modern Chinese glass finds its way into stores such as TK (or TJ) Maxx, it's a good idea to pop into one of those regularly, to see what is for sale there.

The fact that this vase seems a bit lopsided and the bubbles are not well controlled should have been big warning signs that this wasn't Venini.
But if you don't know that to start off with, how are you to tell?
It still looks pretty good and the label fooled you too. That was deliberate and wrong.
I just hope you didn't pay a Venini price.

It's not a fake, per se - just a random Chinese vase with a label on it. But, yes, moving labels (and faking signatures) is unfortunately fairly common on the secondary market. There are lots of dishonest sellers out there.

The model number on the label would put the design of the piece it came from somewhere in the late-1930s to late-1940s, arguably Venini's creative peak with some astonishing (visually, artistically and technically) output by Carlo Scarpa, Gio Ponti, and Fulvio Bianconi. This vase isn't a shade on the quality of output from this period - or any period of Venini, really.

No problem. Sorry it wasn't the news you wanted.

The vase is modern (last 10-15-ish years) and Chinese - the errant (in both senses) label looks to be covering a roughly-ground pontil mark, which you wouldn't typically get on Venini objects. Given the build-up of dirt on the label, you'd also expect a certain amount embedded around the edges of it too, but it appears quite clean.

This model number is missing in the two catalogues partially reprinted in Deboni's 2-volume 'Venini Glass' - which means that the label almost certainly originally came from an item of stemware/tableware or lighting (which, frustratingly, almost always get minimised in (or completely excised from) so-called glass 'catalogues raisonnés').