Topic: 19th century Venetian!!

[SophieB]

To be or not to be a 19th century weight that is the question!!!  

http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5306537&CID=54470031002


SophieB

[TxSilver]

Looks a lot like the one in this thread, doesn't it? http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,32621.0.html

[SophieB]

Hi Anita,

Yep! Indeed!

SophieB

[tropdevin]

***

I think this was in an earlier sale with an even higher estimate. It is about as 19thC as anyone contributing to this Message Board.  My guess is mid 20thC. Interesting enough piece, but

Why reputable auction houses don't do just that little bit of research into paperweights mystifies me (I suspect that all too often they take at face value what the owner says or has written on a label).

An interesting enough piece, but I think the estimate is still heroic.  But maybe two people will fall for it.....

Alan

[SophieB]

Hi Alan,

For such an auction house, I find these 'basic cataloguing mistakes' quite incredible. When it comes to furniture and most decorative arts, they are very choosy and go a long way to protect their reputation (in fact, they often give one the impression that it is an honour for your items to be sold by them.

But you are right, in my humble experience few auction houses catalogue weights properly.

Also, I find infuriating this habit of auction houses of sticking the lot number on the top of the dome, so that anyone without Superman's X-Ray vision has no chance of getting even a glimpse of the weight.

Oh! Dear! Do I sound like a grumpy old woman! I'd better quit...

SophieB

[TxSilver]

I have seen mistakes by most of the best auction houses. I am sure that it is difficult to know everything, even when there are many people working together. Some things are not in catalogs, so the workers have to induce from other things that they do know. This can lead to some errors. This one goes a little beyond me. I can't figure out which Venetian company would have made these type weights in the 19th Century. I don't have a lot of knowledge about millefiori at that time, but the only canes I've seen have been those of Zuffi. And these don't look like those canes.

On the lighter side -- I like my weight better than the one with Christie's. Mine must be one the $1500+ types.  

I keep having this nagging thought: I don't know for sure what the weight is. What if they are right? That would be  .

[KevinH]

As a general "rule of thumb", most paperweight collectors I have spoken to refer to 20th century Murano items as "Murano" and 19th century weights (also made at Murano) as "Venetian". The difference being that most (if not all) 19th century ones were of the "scramble" design with canes/filigrana set just below the surface of the dome. So a modern style millefiori concentric on a polychrome cushion and with a torsade as a collar to a polychrome stem and foot with another torsade to the foot would not fit well with the "rule of thumb" for 19th century "Venetian" work. But maybe the collectors I have talked to have got it wrong?

On a more serious note, I understand that Christie's (and Sotheby's) no longer have the degree of interest in glass paperweights that they used to and there are probably few (if any) specialists in that field at those auction houses these days. But even so ... ??

[TxSilver]

The Collector's Weekly has this short article that says basically what you wrote, KevH. http://www.collectorsweekly.com/art-glass/paperweights I have personally never seen a 19th Cent. Venetian paperweight. I was unaware that they were even made. I would like to see a few. I cannot visualize what aventurine quartz even is.

[alpha]

TXSilver here is a picture of a VENETIAN weight:

[KevinH]

The one shown by alpha is one of the better (and quite expensive) examples.

For a selection of a few other, more generalised, scrambled Venetian weights, click here for the front page of the Paperweight Collectors Circle - then select the menu for Events, Past Exhibitions; scroll down to the bottom of the Exhibitions page and click the link for "Index Here" under "1999 Christie's, London". After that, click the link for "Venetian" under the "Antiques" column in the Tabled Index. Top row of the Venetian page shows five examples of the Scrambled design (top view only), most of which have a mix of canes, filigrana and aventurine (all pics in those pages are clickable for larger views with brief text).

If anyone Googles for "Venetian Scramble Paperweight", you may well find this entry in the "Worthopedia" site. Please note that a) the weight shown is modern Chinese and b) the reference to the design being shown in the Morton D Barker collection is incorrect as, as far as I am aware, there are several "Close Packed Millefiori" designs in that collection but no "Scrambled" designs!