Topic: Pezzato Bowl

[langhaugh]

I looked at the vase in Springhead's post. I'm not sure that I understand why it would be classified as pezzatto. The Venini Catalogue Raisonne defines pezzato as follows, "Production involves two separate phases: first flat thin canes of coloured glass are allowed to cool and then cut into small rectangles; second they are reheated and layered onto the bowl or vessel being fashioned." That definition seems to hold true for all the Venini and Barovier & Toso pezzati that I've seen pictured in books. Heiremanns in Themes and Variations says Bianconi's pezzati pieces were "composed entirely of fused glass pieces" which were shaped by modelling, not blowing. Venini pezzati also have a limited and defined range of colour combinations, explained in an good article at http://jetsetmodern.com/greatglass1.htm

The vase in the post looks a piece of blown glass with thin layers of coloured glass smeared on and then blown. Anita's bowl looks much heavier than the either the Venini or the B & T. It's hard to see Anita's bowl as made up of flattened canes, as they seem to be pretty substantial chunks of glass put together in a fairly random manner. Anita, can you estimate the thickness of the colored pieces?

Anita asked if casing it makes it murrines rather pezzato. I don't think so. Murrines have pattern whereas pezzato is a flat piece of monchrome glass, although B & T applied oxides to the surface of the pieces. I think that B & T cased their pezzati. Does anyone know?

I don't think we can call Anita's bowl pezzato. It does have some similarities, and it might be trying to emulate pezzato, but both in technique and in aesthetics it's quite different. I confess I ended up looking through my Polish sites for something similar. I didn't find anything.


David

 

[Springhead]

Pezzato refers to the shape of the glass "pieces"

nothing more...

[Lustrousstone]

Pezzato means patchwork, see here for pezzato being made http://www.venicewebgallery.com/glass-craft/pezzato/p1.htm

[TxSilver]

Thanks for all the replies. I looked carefully at the bowl today again. The pieces of glass are rolled flat. Based on the amount of base wear, I would say the bowl was made in the 1950s. The color canes do look very thick, but it is just the magnifying property of the glass at the rims. The bowl may be Bianconi-inspired, but the glass is so thick, I doubt that it is Bianconi. I found something of interest the other day when I was looking online. A Fratelli Toso pezzato oval vase with pulled pierced handles was sold by Sotheby's in 1993. Unfortunately, there was no picture. The FT piece sold was 1" longer than my bowl (which was probably designed to hold either flowers or fruit, so could be considered a vase). I wish there was a picture of the Sotheby's vase.

It can be so difficult to know what to call techniques. I guess in its pure form, pezzato would be only the rolled, fused patchwork and the gather. Sometimes terms becomes generalized to include pieces that are cased after the "foundation" is made -- for example, fenici paperweights. Maybe I should call this bowl a cased multicolor patchwork bowl. That would be correct, no matter how the bowl was made.

Maybe we will run across this bowl somewhere when looking for other things. That is usually how it works for me.

Anita

[langhaugh]

Christine: Thanks for the the link, which shows the process really clearly. Springhead says that pezzato means the shape of the glass pieces, no more. I understand that pezzato means spotted or piebald in conversational Italian. But when it used in relation to glass, surely it has a more specific meaning. First of all, as the link from Christine shows, it applies to a very specific technique in the making of glass. But then there's also the term's association with Venini. This association with Venini (and, to a lesser extent, Barovier and Toso) gives the term "pezzato" a cachet which usually results in an increase in attributed value, both aesthetically and monetarily, for the glass so labelled.

As a buyer of Murano, I would prefer sellers to state the provenance of a piece as accurately as they can. As a seller, I wouldn't want my reputation to be based on a guess that a piece of glass looks like something else. For example, on ebay there's a piece, 160027119894, which is attributed to "Venini?" I don't think it would listed at $275 with a possible attribution to Venini if it didn't have a vague similarity to pezzato. (In fact, it looks more like the "a petoni" technique that FT used on nerox glass.) Accurate descriptions are to the advantage of the seller and the buyer.

I was going to say that we should only use pezzato for Venini and Brovier & Toso, but Christine's post shows that would be inaccurate. But I think it should be used narrowly to glass such as that pictured in Christine's post or conforming to the definition in the Venini book. In relation to Anita's bowl, I think her suggestion that she call it a multicolor patchwork bowl is the best and most accurate suggestion.



David

[TxSilver]

I am glad you mentioned the technique pictures in Christine's link. I checked the page, but missed it the first time. The images really helped me understand how pezzato is made. It is easy to read, but not fully visualize the process. I see that no gather is needed, as the fused plate of glass is picked up directly. So, the basic pezzato should be only a single layer of fused glass rectangles that would be as the thickness of the flattened rectangles.

It is interesting to discuss techniques. I enjoy seeing pictures and videos of the different techniques. Thanks, Christine!

Anita

[bidda]

Anita, have you looked into AVeM as a possibility? i was poking around and found this piece http://www.antiquehelper.com/item.php?itemID=37773 which sold recently at auction, attributed to AVeM and i think it's quite similar to yours.

bidda

[TxSilver]

Wow! Yea Bidda!! It is my bowl. You are an angel.  :angel: Thank you.

To add a little more to our discussion about pezzato -- I checked on some of the Bianconi pieces. They were described as fused patches on clear glass. This made me wonder if the plate of glass tiles was placed on clear glass, then fused and rolled to the wanted thickness. If so, then one could feel the tiles only on one side of the glass.

Does anyone have a Bianconi pezzato they can feel? I hope so, so I don't have to empty my piggy bank to try to buy one. My bank already has its ribs showing.

Anita

[Lustrousstone]

In reality I doubt that there are hard and fast rules to pezzato. If you start with the basic technique there is then no reason why you shouldn't case it or hot work it

[TxSilver]

Another one of these bowls showed up to be auctioned this month. The link is http://www.antiquehelper.com/item.php?itemID=41605. It is called pezzato on the description page... but then it is also called sommerso. It is good to get a ballpark estimate for an undamaged bowl. I put mine on eBay last week. One person wrote me and told me she bought them with a market value of $250. What that meant, I don't know. She was probably referring to the smaller bowls without handles. That is their approximate market value.

I wonder if these bowls are simply cased pezzato. The techniques seem the same, except these type bowls are cased.

Anita