Venini vase Colletti series 70’s

About the Item

Colletti series vase in greenish blown glass with two-tone incalmo band decoration designer Alessandro Diaz de Santillana. Venini engraved signature. After graduating in architecture in Venice, he immediately devoted himself to university teaching. After marrying Anna Venini, daughter of Paolo, he took over the management of "Venini & C." from the owner's death to 1985, when with the same duties he moved on to EOS, for which he designed important collections. As owner, Ludovico de Santillana gave great expansion to glass in the world of architecture, opening VENINI furnaces and the secrets of Murano to young Americans, with a delicate balance between art craftsmanship, design and industry. Paolo Venini, (b. 1895-died July 1959, Venice, Italy), Italian glassmaker, designer and manufacturer of glassware whose works are distinguished by their combination of traditional technique and modern form. His glassworks in Murano contributed to a revival of art glass manufacture in the 1930s and 1940s and counted among his masters some of the best designers of the period, including Gio Ponti. Although Venini was educated as a lawyer, his family had been in the glassmaking business in Italy since the 18th century. In 1921, after briefly practicing law in Milan, he bought a company in a Murano glassworks, founding his own Venini and Company four years later. From the beginning, Venini's workshop produced beautiful tableware that was years ahead of the work of other contemporary designers. His designs were strikingly simple, their purity of outlines contrasted with unusual color combinations worked into the glass in bold striped threads, grids, grids, and sometimes the traditional Venetian millefiori manner. His translucent glass lampshades in bold stripes have won critical acclaim. His pieces are displayed in museums and considered prime examples of modern glass art.

Creator:

Alessandro Diaz de Santillana (Designer),Venini (Maker)

Dimensions:

Height: 10.04 in (25.5 cm)Diameter: 9.06 in (23 cm)

Style:

Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)

Materials and Techniques:

Murano Glass

Place of Origin:

Italy

Period:

1970-1979

Date of Manufacture:

1979

Condition:

Seller Location:

bari, IT

Reference Number:

1stDibs: LU4076331674812

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Venini

Beginning in the 1930s — and throughout the postwar years especially — Venini & Co. played a leading role in the revival of Italy’s high-end glass industry, pairing innovative modernist designers with the skilled artisans who created extraordinary chandeliers, sconces and other lighting in the centuries-old glass workshops on the Venetian island of Murano.

While the company’s co-founder, Paolo Venini (1895–1959), was himself a highly talented glassware designer, his true genius was to invite forward-thinking Italian and international designers to Murano’s hallowed workshops to create Venini pieces — among them Gio Ponti, Massimo Vignelli, Finnish designer Tapio Wirkkala, Thomas Stearns of the United States and Fulvio Bianconi.

Paolo Venini trained and practiced as a lawyer for a time, though his family had been involved with glassmaking for generations. After initially buying a share in a Venetian glass firm — he and antiques dealer Giacomo Cappellin established Vetri Soffiati Cappellin Venini & C. in 1921 — Venini took over the company as his own in 1925, and under his direction, it produced mainly classical Baroque designs.

In 1932, Venini hired the young Carlo Scarpa— who would later distinguish himself as an architect — as his lead designer. Scarpa, working in concert with practiced glass artisans, completely modernized Venini, introducing simple, pared-down forms; bright primary colors; and bold patterns such as stripes, banding and abstract compositions that utilized cross sections of murrine (glass rods).

Paolo Venini’s best designs are thought to be his two-color Clessidre hourglasses, produced from 1957 onward, and the Fazzoletto (“handkerchief”) vase, designed with Bianconi in 1949. Bianconi’s masterworks are considered by many to be his Pezzato works — colorful vases with patterns that resemble those of a patchwork quilt.

Other noteworthy and highly collectible vintage Venini works include Ponti’s dual-tone stoppered bottles (circa 1948); rare glass sculptures from the Doge series by Stearns, the first American to design for the firm; Vignelli’s striped lanterns of the 1960s; the Occhi vases with eyelet-shaped patterns by Tobia Scarpa (son of Carlo); and, with their almost zen purity, the Bolle (“bubbles”) bottles designed by Wirkkala in 1968.

With these works — and many others by some of the creative titans of the 20th and 21st centuries — Venini has produced one of the truly great bodies of work in modern design.

Find antique and vintage Venini chandeliers, serveware, table lamps, decorative objects and other furniture on 1stDibs.