Mid-Century Modern Italian Sculptural Red and White Murano Glass Vase, 1960s

Details

Description

A fazzoletto vase in red and white Murano glass, Italy, 1960s.

The form is blown as a cylinder and then … Read more A fazzoletto vase in red and white Murano glass, Italy, 1960s.

The form is blown as a cylinder and then opened and folded outward while still hot, so the rim falls in irregular points like a dropped handkerchief — fazzoletto, the Venetian handkerchief vase. No two are folded alike; the shape is decided in the seconds before the glass sets.

Milky white glass is cased in red, so the rim reads as a red line wherever the fold turns the wall edge-on, and the body lightens where the casing thins.

Unsigned, as most Venetian export glass of the period was. Sold as Murano glass without attribution to a specific furnace.

29 cm across and 20 cm high — large for the form, which is usually made at half this size. See less