Murano Glass

Rare designs by Ercole Barovier, early glasses by Dino Martens and five 'Pulcini' by Alessandro Pianon

We are delighted to present a selection of 189 glass objects designed over the last 130 years. The oldest object is a slender vase by Salviati from 1890, while the most recent work is by Luciano Vistosi, a large-format abstract sculpture entitled ‘Manichino aperto’ from 2001. You can look forward to exciting works, most of which date from the period between 1925 and 1965. This time, the highlights are mainly works by Ercole Barovier and Dino Martens.

Ercole Barovier's vases from the Primavera series of 1929/30 are extremely rare. Due to the high technical challenges involved, the decoration was only produced for a very short time at the Fratelli Barovier factory. Objects from this series are extremely rare and have fetched by far the highest prices in the Murano glass sector in recent years – six-figure bids were not uncommon. The spherical vase offered in the auction, made of typical crackled milk glass with black applications, is in impeccable condition and valued at €60,000–90,000.

Only a few glass manufacturers have managed to work at the highest artistic level for so many decades as Barovier. What makes Barovier special is that Ercole Barovier was responsible for both the business and artistic management of the company for a long period of time. The maestro, who died in 1974 at the age of 85, created the ‘Dorico’ decoration in 1960, which consists of relatively large murrine made of milky white glass combined with colored murrine in a checkerboard pattern. A tall vase signed by the master and dated 1965 in the rarer ‘Dorico corniola’ variant is valued at €9,000 - 12,000.

Few designs live up to the cliché that Murano glass is eccentric and colorful as much as the works of painter Dino Martens. However, it must be emphasized that his works are never obtrusive or unbalanced. What may appear spontaneous and gestural at first glance follows a well-thought-out composition. Fabulous examples of this are the ‘Oriente Leandro’ vase from 1952, estimated at €7,000 - 9,000, and his ‘Eldorado cabaret valva’ bowl from 1953, estimated at €6,000 - 8,000.

In addition to several lamp designs for various manufacturers and vases for the Vistosi factory, Alessandro Pianon became famous for a very special creation. He created a series of five models of birds, known as ‘Pulcini’ (Italian for ‘chicks’). They all have different shapes and colors and stand on spindly copper wire legs. When individual Pulcini appear, they always trigger fierce bidding wars, and their prices have risen significantly in recent times. A complete set of five is coming up for auction with an estimated price of €25,000–30,000.