Glass Message Board
Glass Discussion & Research. NO IDENTIFICATION REQUESTS here please. => Murano & Italy Glass => Topic started by: horochar on November 18, 2007, 03:58:46 PM
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I love this rose colored vase, which was sold to me as Murano circa 1950s. Can someone help me to identify maker and vintage? The bubbles at bottom have a density and size suggestive of the pulegoso technique, but they become quite irregular in size and shape going upward. It's about 14 inches tall and has polished base with indentation/depression in center. My guidebooks are not helpful, although the form suggests to me Fratelli Toso (based on a couple of pictures in Leslie Pina's book). Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Charles.
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Barovier & Toso "efeso," perhaps?
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Efeso glass has solids in it... see the pics below...
Pulegoso is made by adding kerosene or an other agent to the glass. I think that is what is going on here only not quite frothy enough bubbles to be called puligoso. The brick red color is very nice.
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Actually, the vase does have inclusions throughout, which look like sand grains. In the picture below, you can see some of the larger grains (hopefully) in the large bubble. I don't have a macro lens to properly photograph the smaller grains, which as I've stated are throughout, although not in as great a concentration as in the blue piece.
I own a few pulegoso pieces, and that technique doesn't appear to involve inclusions at all. Information I've obtained on the net points to the efeso technique being used by Barovier circa 1964. (This piece has, to my eye, a mid-sixties look.) The execution is also of very high quality, not cheap tourist or mass-produced glass. However, I've found no pictures showing Barovier efeso in colors other than blue, gray and clear. This one is actually a rose color, quite lovely. If not Barovier, did other better Muranese producers work in this technique?
Thanks,
Charles.
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After I posted
heh...
I looked more closely at the pics you have up.
It does seem to be Efeso
As far as I know Barovier was experimenting with unmelted colors
and Efeso was one product of that endeavor
I am posting some pics of some related items I think may be along the same lines
The first is an umbrella stand (huge) I bought once and the others are three bowls I bought at an auction years ago
You can see in each example the colorization is "unmelted" powder like and... I think the object he was striving for with the bubbles was to get the unmelted powders to form patterns as can be seen clearly in the bowls below
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Also...
The Seguso factory worked a technique called Pulvari (sp?)
Pulverized or powdered
much the same thing only the seguso pieces I have seen are all half powdered and half not with the focus of design on the graded interface between the powdered and non-powdered spaces.
I'm looking really closely at the picture of the neck and rim you have up and I think the red colorant looks uneven. Can you verify that?
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It's hard to see detail as I can't get the photographs to increase in size much, so I'm being very tentative. In "Themes and Variations," Heiremans writes, "Being basically a variation of the 'colourisation without fusing" technique, the 'Efeso' distinguishes itself by the numerous--usually irregular--air bubbles which were formed when the layer of oxides was covered." The effeso I've seen, mostly in photographs, had more regular bubbles than this. Also, from what I can make out on this vase, the bubbles seem part of an layer of glass added after the colour. Seguso did some vases with irregular bullicante also. Which Toso vase were you thinking of? I did a quick check of Pina but didn't find one immediately.
Finally, my first reaction was Scandinavian. The top looks similar to a Kastrup vase and several Scandinavian companies used irregular bubbles, quite like this (Randsfjorfglass, for example.)
David
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I can see why you think Scandinavian, the shape is very Aseda - but it also has a strong similarity to a blue Pulegoso bottle vase I have by Aldo Bon. Same shape, same neck finish - and the pulegoso, of course...
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To answer the questions, the color is perfectly uniform throughout, no layers. The Toso that I was referring to was Fratelli Toso; page 96 of Leslie Pina's book depicts pieces with similarly flared rim. I'm almost certain that it is vintage Murano and not Skandinavian, despite the rim treatment, although some of the images in chapter 6 ("Spots") in the Fire & Sea book give me pause. It just has a look and "feel" of Murano when you pick it up and hold it. It's quite thick and heavy, despite its elegant form. One clue as to maker may be the technique. It has a polished pontil bottom (i.e., with a concave depression in middle).
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... it also has a strong similarity to a blue Pulegoso bottle vase I have by Aldo Bon. Same shape, same neck finish - and the pulegoso, of course...
If it is not too much trouble, could you post a picture of your Aldo Bon? Also, does it have sand-like inclusions, or just a pure pulegoso?
Thanks,
Charles.
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Actually yes it is too much trouble right now; we're recovering from a massive computer crash and are just breaking in the new laptop, so it may be a few weeks before we're up and running all the way.
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The air bubbles in efeso glass are more irregular, with more larger bubbles.
I agree that this piece looks more Scandinavian than Italian. I have Sea Glassbruk vases with almost the same form. But, with Murano glass, just about anything is possible. But, it doesn't look like Barovier or seguso to me.
Laura
PlanetGlass.net
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At the risk of exhausting the Board's patience, I re-photo'd the bubbles, inclusions and base. These pix, I think, do a better job than the others. The color is rose/pink, not brick red (the 1st shows it more accurately than the 2nd). I promise this to be my last posting on this topic!
Thanks,
Charles.
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As you have demonstrated
the color is better with the flash
the first pics have too much yellow
did Laura say the bubbles in efeso were more irregular... heh...
check the pics of the blue bottle I posted above
the bubbles look more "regular"... to me...
I'm convinced the vase is efeso or some variation thereof
I don't know of ant Scandinavian glass with particles floating around in it
but there is a type of WMF... but that's not it...
there are lots of variables, color, thickness of glass etc...
that cause a variation in glass
a never ending experiment... at least in italy... heh...
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the WMF glass would be of the Art Deco period
heh...
HAPPY NEW YEAR~
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Springhead was wondering about particles floating in Scandinavian glass. Several designers used the colour without fusion technique, although there wasn't much colour. I've got Benny Motzfeldt and Bengt Orup pieces with the effect. Also, several other designers used the effect, though I haven't seen it in red glass. Both Scandinavian and Murano factories could produce glass with the bubbles and the particles, which isn't surprising given the amount of cross pollination at the time. So I don't think we can use those general criteria (bubbles and inclusions) to say where where the vase came from.
I wish I had more Scandinavian books as all I'm with is, "It still looks Scandinavian to me."
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Benny Motzfeldt used floating particles and randomly shaped bubbles on a lot of her designs,
most of her art glass has bubbles and/or inclusions. She used metal shavings/particles, glass fibre,
metal mesh etc. B.M. used a wide variety of colors, not so much vibrant and bright colors,
but all over the spectre from clear to dark purples.
Her techniques influenced other glassmakers in Norway and you'll see her influence on a lot of Severin Brøbry pieces.
Vintage RG is usually not signed. The glass was usually labelled Randsfjord Glass and Designed by XYZ
B.M. signed her unique works with B.M and year (and usually not glassworks).
I agree with the top looking very Danish, Holmegaard/Kastrup jumps to mind.
My gut feeling says it's not Norwegian but it's a weak gut feeling.