Topic: I think this could be a Blenko carafe ?...a positive ID would be great ! Ta !!

[Baked_Beans]

Has a rough pontil scar and is heat polished (very glossy), stands 20.5 cm tall. Any positive ID would be much appreciated as there is no signature. I think signatures ended in 1961 and then began again after 2000. Cheers , Mike.

[Ivo]

Not Blenko - but Empoli.

[Baked_Beans]

Thanks Ivo,
I'm going to have to look Empoli up !! Who inspired who ? ....very similar wouldn't you say ?

[Ivo]

If I go into your question I willl get dragged into a lengthy disagreement with all americans who believe this generic 60s/ 70s style can only have been developed by company X <your name here>. Believe me, it has happened before. But usually it went like this. One Scandinavian firm (probably Boda) presents a new rustic and colourful style on the Frankfurt fair.  All competitors (say Blenko, Fostoria, Leerdam, Whitefriar's, glass makers from Belgium, Germany, Italy and all the rest of the world including Czechoslovakia <party members only>) find it refreshing, innovative and good thing they just happened to have their sketch books ready. Some will copy the actual design, some just the rustic style or the colour scheme and adapt it for their home market. "It's a trend", they say, "it is what people want nowadays".  On the next fair, a trend is obvious. Some companies cannot be credited with a single original design in their whole existence - in others it just melts into the main strream of production.

There are several companies who have played the design game exceptionally well - setting trends as well as following them. The various Empoli companies depended largely on foreign markets and had no geographically protected market like the US or the UK - and these have had a major influence on shapes, design and trends, also because they only used bottle glass.  If I had to rate companies by design originality, Empoli would rate very high - and some celebrated names would start a war of destruction against iconoclastic continental opinion....

So I think your attribution is good news, after all.

 

[TxSilver]

Gio Ponti apparently agreed with you, Ivo. I read in a biographical account that he admired the glass of the area very much and designed some pieces. Unfortunately, the pieces were not shown.

[Baked_Beans]

Thanks Ivo, What a superb retort ! The same story happens in ceramics !

[johnphilip]

Good news and bad news, i bought one of those several months ago it had enameled faces all the way round sort of Salvador Dali ish with fags in mouth Yves Montand ish , I took it to a glass fair because i liked it so much when i showed it to Mark Hill he said" i missed the bidding on that do you want to sell it" i declined but during lunch it got knocked off of the table and is  now in many pieces i could have cried . Good news not Dali bad news possibly Ponti . I feel guilty when i break a work of art , i hope Mark does not read this . Out comes the superglue. :cry: :cry: :cry:

[Baked_Beans]

John , It's easy to let glass slip through ones hands ....both physically and metaphorically.... There is a Chinese proverb which say..... 'A carafe in the hand is worth more than one on the floor  :ac1:'

[MarkHill]

Was not Ponti, but Anzolo Fuga in my opinion...sorry again for breaking the bad news John....Superglue indeed...a jolly rare thing - and now even rarer 
Still, these things happen.
M.