Topic: Large Cased Lattimo Vases - Venini

[Pinkspoons]

I've been trying to do my homework on these for the last few months, but no direct confirmation, only tantalising clues.

They're vases with thin lattimo interiors and orange/blue exteriors, and an applied ribbon in said same colour. Broken pontil mark, no acid-etch markings... but...

...in Sotheby's Venetian Glass 1910-1960 (1990), Lot 72, there's an attributed Venini vase in the same orange colourway. And in Sotheby's English and Continental Glass from 1500-1960 (1991) there's a recorded Venini vase in the blue colourway with acid-etched mark (Lot 429) and a transparent green vase of the same shape with two applied ribbons, also with acid etched mark and apparently a broken pontil base (Lot 520).

Yea or nay? If yea, do we think Martinuzzi or Zecchin?

If nay... then what is it?

Many thanks.

[TxSilver]

No one else has said anything, which probably means they know about as much as I do. From the superior execution of the glass I would not be surprised if it is Venini. Many people do not suspect Venini if something is not signed. Many Venini pieces are not signed. The pieces made in the early 1920s and pieces made by Tommaso Buzzi are often unsigned. Also pieces sold as sets are usually not all signed -- maybe the main piece will have the acid stamp.

If it is Venini or one of the related companies, I was more pulled toward Scarpa. The applied ring gave me hesitation on Scarpa, though. I'm not sure if he ever did this. Someone more familiar with his designs should know. Scarpa also designed Venini-style glass for Cappellin. His Cappellin designs are just as lovely as his Venini ones are. Martinuzzi also did some beautiful Cappellin designs.

Wish I could offer something more definite beyond saying that the glass work is superior and I would not be surprised if it is Venini... or maybe Cappellin.

[Pinkspoons]

Thanks for taking a look.  

I was drawn to Scarpa when I first bought the blue vase, as it was in a very similar colour to a transparent Cappellin centrepiece I already owned. The applied ring doesn't present too much in the way of a problem as there is a handful of designs with them illustrated in Carlo Scarpa: Glass of an Architect. What might be a problem is that the book doesn't show much of a leaning towards bell-shaped objects... although I'm not sure how comprehensive the catalogue raisonné contained within it is. It does also show some cased designs in the same blue colour, but any applied decoration is made of a much darker shade of blue.

In the earlier parts of the Venini blue catalogue there is much more of a preoccupation with bell-shaped forms, and certainly many more designs with rings, and in this period there seems to be much more use of single colour (the stamped blue Venini vase in Sotheby's, for example, has an applied frill in the same glass as the outer casing). So parsimony is drawing me towards pre-Scarpa Cappellin/Venini.

But I might be wrong - I'm still feeling my way around Murano glass attribution.