Topic: Aventurine controlled bubble vase, Artisti Barovier?

[rocco]

Picked this vase up at 2,- Euro today, thinking it was a nice but generic Murano piece.
It stands a little over 20cm tall, controlled bubbles and copper aventurine, applied foot and handles made of honey coloured glass.
(Sorry for the crappy pic against a darker background, but it shows the Aventurine better)

Then I found several vases with the same decoration, attributed to Vetreria Artistica Barovier from the 1920s/30s, from a range called "Avventurina":
>> Link BDK
>> Link Quittenbaum

And the KOCOMA website shows an >> identical vase, also attributed to Barovier.

Any thoughts highly appreciated...

Thanks!
Michael

[ardy]

I think you have nailed it yourself. It is a lovely piece and you were lucky to grab it. This sort of thing is getting rarer as there seems to be a fair number of collectors and lots of Chinese rubbish but not a lot of genuine stuff.

[rocco]

Thanks a lot, Ardy!
I do hope you are right; I have compared it once again to the other pieces I found online (regarding technique, colour of the base and handles, shape), and it really seems a likely attribution...
Amazing that nobody picked it up before I did (it was a seller at the fleamarket who had all his stuff on the ground, selling each piece for 2,- Euro).

Michael

[TxSilver]

It does look like Barovier. I saw the vase in the BDK Link in VA Barovier and not Artisti Barovier. Artisti Barovier reorganized into VA Barovier in 1919, so Artisti things are very old. Your vase is newer than 1919, so I would say VA instead if it was made by them.

But the Quittenbaum link has Ercole designing the vase in 1936 after he switched over to work with Ferro and Toso. I am more inclined to believe this. The style looks more in keeping with that time, and later things made by Barovier & Toso borrowed from this look. I'll have to see if I can locate it in any of my books.

[rocco]

Ah, I see -- thanks a lot, Anita! I had the feeling that I probably got the pre-B&T companies mixed up.
So 1920s to mid 1930s...

Michael

[TxSilver]

Strangely enough, Artisti & VA Barovier didn't give rise to Barovier & Toso. Artisti & VA Barovier evolved from Salviati through Fratelli Barovier. VA closed down in 1936 and didn't give rise to anything.

Ercole switched over from VA Barovier to a different company -- SAIAR Ferro Toso -- in 1936. This company had evolved from Francesco Ferro and Figlio through a series of steps. Ercole was the first Barovier among the named owners. The company changed to Ferro Toso Barovier in 1936, which ultimately evolved into Barovier & Toso.

All this is from Murano Magic. It is all interesting the ways things changed.

[rocco]

Thanks Anita!
Very interesting how the companies evolved and artists migrated from one to the other...
No wonder that so much of the glass is hard to attribute, as surely the designs and technique migrated, too (apart from being copied by other companies).

Michael

[flying free]

Anita, I've been reading through my books and previous posts to get a handle on who went where in terms of Barovier and Salviati history, and your description of the flow of people and companies is very helpful. 
I posted a bowl on the main board and asked if it was Ercole Barovier.  Barovier & Toso said it was not from past production of their company and they did not know who made it.  I assumed that if it had been Ercole Barovier they would have recognised it and said so.

 However, if it was made at  Artisti Barovier then might Barovier & Toso  have still said the same, i.e. not from past production of their company? 
I'm not reading anything more into it, as various options have been muted for the bowl.  But I'd like to discount Ercole Barovier or Artisti Barovier and don't want to have misread something.
Thanks if you have time to reply.
m

[TxSilver]

m, I looked at the bowl and thought it could be Venetian glass, maybe Barovier. I'm afraid I know less than you do about it. The iridato finish looks like something that would be done in Murano. I'm not sure exactly when iridato became popular. I know several companies were doing it in the 1930s. I'm trying to remember any earlier things that had the finish, but I'm not coming up with anything.

There were some workers from VA Barovier that formed another company together in the early 1930s. The depression hit VA Barovier hard, so they had to let many workers go. Antonio Seguso and sons, including Archimede, left VA Barovier in 1932 to form their own company. The next year master Napoleone Barovier joined with them, along with Luigi Ferro, to form Barovier-Seguso-Ferro. BSF did a good bit of quirky work and experimented much with iridato. BSF reorganized to Seguso VdA in 1937. Strange to think that the Seguso companies also evolved from VA Barovier. It was like the company that gave rise to the subsequent lines of great Murano glass, but the company itself was to weak to survive the times.

Napoleone Barovier was very important to VA Barovier and had been a master glassblower with Artisti Barovier. He is a very important person in glass history, though many have never heard of him. I consider him the father of massello sculptures. He is the one that first started executing those solid glass animals VA Barovier is known for. And not surprisingly he took Archimede Seguso under his wing. No wonder Archimede loved the animals so much. He learned from the master.

Well, I could talk on, but it just gets confusing to weave things together. It makes one realize that things are never black and white on the island of Murano. I really just wanted to mention Napoleone Barovier as a possibility if you're researching, since he was a master glass blower for Artisti and VA Barovier. Perhaps the bowl design is from the BSF branch of the dying VA Barovier.

[flying free]

Anita thanks so much for all the detail and information and for your view on the bowl.   I really appreciate it.  I will keep looking for any information on Napoleone Barovier and thank you for the additional detail about him as there is nothing  online apart from a few snippets.
I really didn't know where to start on the bowl, and was thinking early 20th because of the iridescence originally (it was sold as English and the iridescence would fit in with that period for English and Bohemian glass) and the lattice - and I suppose that led my thoughts.  However, that pontil mark and the type of iridescence and the shape of the bowl mean that at the moment I'm concentrating on it being possibly a Murano piece. And I also think it is quite old, not recent,  so it's good to know you wouldn't discount Murano.  Many thanks again
I'll post back if I find anything more.
m