Glass Message Board
Glass Discussion & Research. NO IDENTIFICATION REQUESTS here please. => Murano & Italy Glass => Topic started by: Sandra on August 29, 2009, 03:57:16 PM
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Does this look like it may have been made by AVEM & would you call it tutti frutti?
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No one else has answered yet, so I'll give it a try. I believe that tutti frutti is not really a technique, but just describes a colorful scrambled cane bowl that often has latticino. So if this idea is right, your bowl could qualify as tutti frutti. It is hard to say for sure it is AVeM because several companies did similar bowls. Without seeing a labeled bowl that is the same design, I wouldn't be able to say with any certainty. I hope someone else will recognize the design.
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I'll chime in here.
This piece does not strike me as an AVEM piece, but something more generic....
I do not think of this type of glass as Tutti Frutti. To me Tutti Frutti, as done by AVEM contains much larger and more defined fragments of canes, ribbon and latticino. I also do not associate the use of streaks of solid color glass in a Tutti Frutti piece.
To me, Tutti Frutti is an artistic conglomeration of canes and latticino suspended in clear glass, which may or may not be over a colored vessel, but not containing "smears" of solid color. My understanding is that it is a name applied to a technique developed by Dino Martens at AVEM, although I feel the term has been widely applied to even remotely similar pieces through the years, for lack of a better descriptive term to apply to remotely similar work.
Most Tutti Frutti pieces I have seen are not very large, and the ones that are AVEM Tutti Frutti and are large are typically associated with high price tags to go with the size.
This is a link to an AVEM Tutti Frutti piece. This piece is a little larger than most at around 6 inches tall. You see a lot of Toothpick holders and such in what I see as authentic AVEM Tutti Frutti.....
http://antiquehelper.rfcsystems.com/Full/715/61715.jpg
Hope this helps.... Someone else can certainly correct me if my understanding is flawed.
Craig
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I do want to say that I've looked for a couple of years and have not come up with any evidence that Dino Martens was involved (or not involved) with AVeM tutti frutti. The only reference I've seen is in Judith Miller and Leslie Pina, where it was mentioned that Martens was a possible designer, which was repeated by a couple of other people until it evolved into fact on eBay. Martens did do some designs for other companies before he accepted his position with Aureliano Toso. Two companies I know of are Salviati and Fratelli Toso. He may have designed something for AVeM -- hard to know without reading anything definite.
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I do not remember exactly where I got the attribution from, but I do not believe it was from ebay..... My memory could be failing me on that though, although I usually avoid ebay attributions. I did have several email correspondence with a high end Italian collector in Phoenix several years ago and he sent me some images, including a 20" tutti Frutti piece that he also identified as Martens for AVEM. It is the largest example I have ever seen, in an image or otherwise.... It is monstrous!!
I also found this reference by Svazzo (Javier) on his website. He attributes 4 pieces of Tutti Frutti to Dino Martens for AVEM. He may be able to provide a source for the attribution.... Here is a link to his site page for Martens:
As far as being 100% sure of the attribution goes..... I am neither denying or confirming the accuracy of that statement senator, as I have no specific recollection of that event!!! :spls:
http://www.svazzo.com/id8.html
The image is one that was sent to me as an example of Tutti Frutti by Martens for AVEM.
Craig
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The Dino Martens attribution is very common, but I don't know if anyone can say if it is correct. One thing I haven't done is to write Marc Heiremans. He is the leading authority on Martens, so may be able to give a definite yes or no. I don't pay much attention to how these pieces are listed on the internet because mistakes can repeat themselves. The tutti frutti pieces were made during the 1950-60s, a period when Martens was at Aureliano Toso, but they could have been based on an earlier design.
I love all these "maybe/maybe nots" in the art glass world! :huh:
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I would be extremely interested in what he has to say if you have a way to get in contact with him him.... Maybe we have an opportunity to go a step further and put the issue to rest, one way or another... at least for some of us here.....
I agree with you..... about all of the maybe/maybe not..... but if it was all known, what would we have to talk about??
Craig
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Thank you to all who replied.
So then this is not a tutti frutti piece, whether by AVEM or another company?
I'm wondering if this could be a newer piece from China? The reason I say that is because there's very little wear on the bottom & the stem has a cross hatch pattern impressed into the glass.
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I would say it was from Murano, not China. Tutti frutti is a generic sort of term I suspect; in Italian it means all fruits, so I see no reason why your dish couldn't be described as tutti frutti even if it's not AVEM.
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I wrote to Marc Heiremans today and received an answer about the AVeM tutti frutti pieces. I've included my and his emails below.
I wrote:
Hello from the USA. I own several of your books. They are very
helpful to me. Thank you so much for sharing your information with other
people. I am writing because of a question that we are discussing on
Angela Bowey's Glass Message Board. We often see the AVeM tutti frutti
pieces attributed to Dino Martens. These pieces have a scramble of cane
and latticino pieces in clear glass, often with silver foil. Do you know
if Dino Martens designed these pieces for AVeM? I have not seen anything
definite written that he participated in the design (or that he did not).
This question comes up often, so I thought it would be good to write to
you to try to find an answer. Thank you very much for your time.
Marc Heiremans answered:
Good afternoon,
Glad my books were/are of any asistance. That was their major goal....
These vases, sometimes also refered to as "end-of-the-day vases" have
nothing to do with Dino Martens, nor any important factory
on Murano. To my regret, I have to inform you that they are totally
unsignificant.
Best regards, Marc Heiremans.
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Thanks Anita, that is interesting... It does not surprise me.
I do find it interesting that he does not associate the work with any significant house, yet Svazzo has one with, if I read the text correctly, a partial AVEM label.
I have also seen pieces, such as the one I posted the image of, that I would consider to be significant pieces of work.....
Craig
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Craig, I had asked him about the AVeM pieces, both in the title of the message to him and in the body of the message sent. I believe that it shows the difference in levels of collection. Mr. Heiremans is about 100 times more advanced than myself. What I consider really nice, he may consider insignificant. Most of the things we buy in the USA are considered tourist glass. They were made in large quantities for sale in shops and for export. One of the reasons I included my text was so people could see just what was asked. Otherwise, it would have been harder to interpret.
AVeM made a lot of tourist glass. There were a couple of designers of great reputation -- Fuga and Radi -- and a couple of masterful glass blowers, but perhaps they are not considered among the great companies because of their production of trinkets. I'll have to look to see if they were awarded prizes.
Or it could be because everybody made tutti frutti type glass, so he was just lumping it. Anyway... I feel like you when it comes to not being surprised. I never thought the tutti frutti looked like something Martens would design. The vessels simply look like pretty roll-up type vessels that any good glassmaker could do. I had a few tutti frutti vases (I call them scrambles usually) that had the AVeM label. AVeM and Fratelli Toso produced the better of these pieces IMO.
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I suppose it is all a matter of your perspective..... I guess I would hope that I personally never change my perspective to the point of considering a nice piece of glass to be "insignificant" based on who produced it.....
IMHO It reminds me too much of the art world, where "who did it" becomes at times, much more important than the work itself...... and a really great work by a lesser or unknown artist is termed insignificant.... Also reminds me of a documentary I watched on a Jackson Pollock painting that the entire art wold was trying to disavow because of who owned it.... even though it had every earmark of being authentic, and a provenance which would strongly support the attribution. The owner was not a member of the "art world".
Go figure....
I am glad to finally know that the Dino Martens attribution is a myth.........
Craig
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I think from the speed of the response and the tone of the letter, he probably wasn't dismissing the glass, only saying that it was not designed by anyone of note. This is okay. It is still pretty.
Tastes do change as we learn more about glass. I remember at one time thinking that some things were really great, but now I wouldn't buy them. It is all a process of learning and figuring out what we can afford. I would love to have all the things Anzolo Fuga and Pino Signoretto made, but my wallet can only squeak out enough for nice enough lesser pieces. Probably most people are like me. On the Bohemian side, I would love a shelf full of Loetz phanomen genres, but I'll have to settle for Kralik. :)
The tutti frutti bowl in the original post branched off to a completely different thread. Do you think we should split this post?
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You are probably right about his response.... I myself have champagne tastes on a beer budget also.... but every once in a while I get really really really lucky and I buy top notch champagne for the price of cheap beer.
I don't think we need to split it.... we can simply leave it alone now as a settled issue.... I think we answered two questions here as well as they can be answered... Is the original dish AVEM, and did Dino Martens really design Tutti Frutti.... IMO, they are both related to the initial question....
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Anita:
Thank you for taking the time (and taking a risk) to ask Marc Heiremanns the question we've discussed many times. I'm not surprised that Martens didn't design it, and neither am I too offended by Heiremanns comment that the glass is insignificant. I take that to mean that it doesn't represent a technical or artistic advance. They've been made by using the parison to pick up some slices of canes and murrines and blowing the piece. While I agree that some pieces are prettier than others (the large example Craig shows is very nice), it's not a complicated technique and there's not much design involved. However, I agree choosing which canes and murrines are to be added, how many are chosen, and how they are arranged does make a difference to how well it looks. I don't think Heiremanns is saying the significance of the piece depends on the name. He's just very lucky that most of the glass he sees and discusses is far beyond our means. I've got a few oil paintings by local artists that I really like, but I think a world renowned art critic would see them as insignificant to the world that he lives in. However, they're still extremely significant to the world I live in.
Possibly AveM did produce the glass, as did other factories. However, to me, the most important question is whether there is any artistic or technical merit to the piece in question. I'm not sure which made factory made it has much bearing to to the discussion, other than what it might fetch on the open market.
Thanks again, Anita. Can we live in hope that this might eventually change eBay attributions?
David
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I doubt that the attributions on ebay will ever change regarding this glass....
As far as the comment about the glass being insignificant, I am not offended by the use of the comment. I just think that it is unfortunate that anything people collect would be described in that way by anyone. I personally would never do it, regardless of how high end my collection, my knowledge level, or my budget got...
I just think it is a poor choice of words.
How about saying "The decor is not attributed to any particular artist of note, although many companies made it." Says the same thing without risking an insult to owners of similar items.....
Probably just my extensive sales background at work.........
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David, you said it so well. What you wrote is how I felt, but I couldn't express it. Thank you for putting it into words.
Another thing to consider is that English is a second or third language to many people. I often laugh when I get a message from someone in another country with abrupt or twisted language. Then I admire them because my only second language is... or at least was ... Latin. A lot of good that did!
My own thought is, isn't he kind to have answered our question. I admit to being star-struck, though I would never admit it, of course. I've always found his books to be thoroughly researched and helpful. And I've yet to find a mistake in any of them. I can't say that about many :-)
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I agree with you regarding his kindness to answer the question.
I also guess I did not realize that English is not his primary language. In that case I would certainly disregard the word choice.... Especially in light of the fact that I do not have a second language..
I also think that David's explanation of his answer is correct... Better than I could say it also...
Craig