Italian glassmaker Carlo Moretti elevated glassmaking to an avant-garde art form. He is known for his decorative vases, striking centerpieces and elegant table lamps. The bright, rich colors and sophisticated silhouettes of mid-century modernism that characterize his works brought high prestige to the Moretti name.

Moretti was born in 1934 on Murano, a series of islands in the Venetian lagoon, a place famous for its glassmaking. Six years later, in 1940, his brother Giovanni Moretti was born. The older Moretti brother initially studied to become a lawyer, but he fell in love with the glassmaking tradition of his birthplace.

In 1958, the two brothers opened the Carlo Moretti glassmaking company together in Murano. Carlo headed the company's creative side, but he was also a savvy entrepreneur. The Carlo Moretti company became known for its innovative techniques, creativity in design and refined style.

Over the next 50 years, Moretti earned a name for himself as one of the Venetian glass masters. He was the recipient of the 1966 Internationalen Handwerksmesse Gold Medal, the 1966 Internationales Kunsthandwerk Award, the 1976 Macef Award and the 1984 Arango International Design Competition. His work is held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Kunstgewerbemuseum, Musée Ariana and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

When Moretti died in 2008, Giovanni took over the company. Giovanni sold the Carlo Moretti company in 2013 and passed away in 2014. The company continues to introduce new glassware collections in the characteristic style of its founder. It also operates a showroom called L’ISOLA in Venice.

On 1stDibs, find vintage Carlo Moretti decorative objects, serveware, lighting and more.

A Close Look at mid-century-modern Furniture

Organically shaped, clean-lined and elegantly simple are three terms that well describe vintage mid-century modern furniture. The style, which emerged primarily in the years following World War II, is characterized by pieces that were conceived and made in an energetic, optimistic spirit by creators who believed that good design was an essential part of good living.

ORIGINS OF MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE DESIGN

Emerged during the mid-20th century
Informed by European modernism, Bauhaus, International style, Scandinavian modernism and Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture
A heyday of innovation in postwar America
Experimentation with new ideas, new materials and new forms flourished in Scandinavia, Italy, the former Czechoslovakia and elsewhere in Europe

CHARACTERISTICS OF MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE DESIGN

Simplicity, organic forms, clean lines
A blend of neutral and bold Pop art colors
Use of natural and man-made materials — alluring woods such as teak, rosewood and oak; steel, fiberglass and molded plywood
Light-filled spaces with colorful upholstery
Glass walls and an emphasis on the outdoors
Promotion of functionality

MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE DESIGNERS TO KNOW

Charles and Ray Eames
Eero Saarinen
Milo Baughman
Florence Knoll
Harry Bertoia
Isamu Noguchi
George Nelson
Danish modernists Hans Wegner and Arne Jacobsen, whose emphasis on natural materials and craftsmanship influenced American designers and vice versa

ICONIC MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE DESIGNS

VINTAGE MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE ON 1STDIBS

The mid-century modern era saw leagues of postwar American architects and designers animated by new ideas and new technology. The lean, functionalist International-style architecture of Le Corbusier and Bauhaus eminences Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius had been promoted in the United States during the 1930s by Philip Johnson and others. New building techniques, such as “post-and-beam” construction, allowed the International-style schemes to be realized on a small scale in open-plan houses with long walls of glass.

Materials developed for wartime use became available for domestic goods and were incorporated into mid-century modern furniture designs. Charles and Ray Eames and Eero Saarinen, who had experimented extensively with molded plywood, eagerly embraced fiberglass for pieces such as the La Chaise and the Womb chair, respectively.

Architect, writer and designer George Nelson created with his team shades for the Bubble lamp using a new translucent polymer skin and, as design director at Herman Miller, recruited the Eameses, Alexander Girard and others for projects at the legendary Michigan furniture manufacturer.

Harry Bertoia and Isamu Noguchi devised chairs and tables built of wire mesh and wire struts. Materials were repurposed too: The Danish-born designer Jens Risom created a line of chairs using surplus parachute straps for webbed seats and backrests.

The Risom lounge chair was among the first pieces of furniture commissioned and produced by legendary manufacturer Knoll, a chief influencer in the rise of modern design in the United States, thanks to the work of Florence Knoll, the pioneering architect and designer who made the firm a leader in its field. The seating that Knoll created for office spaces — as well as pieces designed by Florence initially for commercial clients — soon became desirable for the home.

As the demand for casual, uncluttered furnishings grew, more mid-century furniture designers caught the spirit.

Classically oriented creators such as Edward Wormley, house designer for Dunbar Inc., offered such pieces as the sinuous Listen to Me chaise; the British expatriate T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings switched gears, creating items such as the tiered, biomorphic Mesa table. There were Young Turks such as Paul McCobb, who designed holistic groups of sleek, blond wood furniture, and Milo Baughman, who espoused a West Coast aesthetic in minimalist teak dining tables and lushly upholstered chairs and sofas with angular steel frames.

As the collection of vintage mid-century modern chairs, dressers, coffee tables and other furniture for the living room, dining room, bedroom and elsewhere on 1stDibs demonstrates, this period saw one of the most delightful and dramatic flowerings of creativity in design history.

Finding the Right glass for You

Whether you’re seeking glass dinner plates, centerpieces, platters and serveware or other items to elevate the dining experience or brighten the corners of your living room, bedroom or other spaces by displaying decorative pieces, find an extraordinary range of antique, new and vintage glass on 1stDibs.

Glassmaking is more than 4,000 years old. It is believed to have originated in Northern Mesopotamia, where carved glass objects were the result of a series of experiments led by potters or metalworkers. From there, the production of glass vases, bottles and other objects proliferated in Egypt under the reign of Thutmose III. Later, new glassmaking techniques took shape during the Hellenistic era, and glassblowing was invented in contemporary Israel. Then, on the island of Murano in Venice, Italy, modern art glass as we know it came to be.

Over the years, collectors of glass decorative objects or serveware have sought out distinctive antique and vintage pieces of the mid-century modern, Art Deco and Art Nouveau eras, with artisans such as Archimede Seguso, René Lalique and Émile Gallé of particular interest for the pioneering contributions they made to the respective styles in which they worked. Today, long-standing glassworks such as Barovier&Toso carry on the Venetian glasswork tradition, while modern furniture designers and sculptors such as Christophe Côme and Jeff Zimmerman elsewhere test the limits of the radical art form that is glassmaking.