Topic: Oval pink and white glass bowl with gold ...Seguso perhaps ?

[Baked_Beans]

I think you are totally spot-on !!

[ardy]

I still get confused between pulveri and sfumato which forms the trails in this work.

Got this description from Modernist glass referring to A.S. small bowl" "Pulveri" is the name of the style. It means "powdered". "Sfumato" is a technique producing this smoky effect by enclosing fine inner veils of colour in the glass. "Oro" is of course gold. In each case, the sfumato effect is graduated in over the gold foil. The gold foil is in not one but two layers in the glass."

Sfumato in art seems to be a different effect to glass work.

For Baked Beans, as most of the others have seen this one. It is the first Archimede Seguso piece I bought and still one of my favourites. He used this technique a lot and I have several pieces with this effect.

I also have this bowl which I suspect is SvDA. I have not got an id on it, but it also has some similarities to yours.

[Baked_Beans]

I've added some pics here of a glass shell with gold inclusions (Murano, top and base pics ) . I've always thought it had gold dust inclusions.... but I remember reading somewhere that a definition of 'polveri' was ground-up gold leaf , so then I thought it was ' polveri ' (which it isn't) . Now I realise it's gold leaf, there is a straight line in this pattern of gold specks which I was unable to photograph, sadly,  but it would suggest the edge of a leaf (of gold) 

Post script ...Thanks Ardy, interesting !

[glassobsessed]

For pulveri just think frit or ground glass. This pitcher is clear glass with distinct areas coloured with either pink or blue pulveri. The pink blobs show up in the second photo.

[TxSilver]

I believe Pina's book on Archimede Seguso caused much confusion. She calls the polveri glass in the book sfummato. Sfumato means smoke. The technique was probably developed by Alfredo Barbini when he was at VAMSA in the 1930s. The glass is exposed to smoke to give the mysterious grey effect. It is the same effect that other companies have tried to achieve since then.

In painting, sfumato refers to shading colors together so there are no distinct borders. Using that description, we could say that the polveri things fit. But it causes much confusion. I would have stuck to calling them polveri, because what we think of as sfumato in Murano is a totally different technique.

I don't know what Archimede called his polveri technique. It would be interesting to find out. The blending of colors with gold is indeed pretty. I posted two pictures below. The first is a Barbini sfumato bird. The second is an Archimede Seguso polveri bird. The Seguso bird is courtesy of Mike Stevens. (My own polveri birds were all brown, which would have been confusing indeed.)

[KevinH]

Title of thread changed as per Mike's comment earlier.

But this is now developing into an interesting discussion on "how was it made" and "what's the process called". Might need another title change soon

[TxSilver]

I just noticed the Salviati piece. I don't think this is polveri. It looks like it is just spotted (macchia). One thing with the polveri is the color is grainy. Maybe it is not heated so high that it completely fuses with the surrounding glass. I've read no one knows how Archimede did his polveri... and if they do, they aren't telling. The Salviati piece to me doesn't look grainy like I would expect with pulveri. I could be wrong here.

Kevin, this has gotten off on technique, hasn't it? I have a bad habit of that. 

[KevinH]

That's not a bad habit the way I see things. I like a bit of detailed discussion with options and alternatives and other such sleuthing. I just wish I could think as clearly as I once could!!

[ardy]

Would like to see a sticky thread on techniques. Sorry to have hijacked your thread Baked Beans!

[glassobsessed]

The Salviati piece to me doesn't look grainy like I would expect with pulveri.

That is why I included the second photo Anita, looking closely those individual grains can be seen.

I described that technique as polveri as this is how it is described throughout the book Venetian Glass of the 1890s by Carol Osborne, where the definition is given as "Polveri: Powdered fragments of colored glass used for different color effects".

The same technique is used here, clear glass coloured with green or yellow polveri: http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,53743.0.html