Cut Glass Urns

A very decorative neoclassical silver urn stamped by the Italian silversmith Emanuele Caber, dating from around 1825. It has the Milan warranty stamp, and stamp of the silver finenes...

Legras Style Enameled and Hand-Painted Decoration Glass Vase, 1930s Period: Early 20th century Origin: St. Denis, France Color: Enameled with magenta crimson hues on a peach ground ...

Italian Silver Neoclassical Lidded Urn. Italian neoclassical sterling silver urn form zucchiera. Handles with foliate terminals and lid with a...

Before describing the object under consideration we must make an important clarification; the artifact, one of many that we will publish over time, is part of the museum collection of a historic Florentine crystal grinder that unfortunately closed recently. It is the Marcello Galgani & Son company, whose completely manual and artisanal work has not withstood the disproportionate advance of mass-produced mechanical processes! Marcello Galgani began his craft as a grinder and restorer in 1960; as the years went by, Marcello mastered and became familiar with particular techniques and shapes, resulting in the production of objects that manage to retain the freshness of grinding and engraving, the warmth and softness of light, and the inimitable flavor of unique artifacts. After several years, his son Lorenzo, who grew up among crystals, also entered the business and immediately became passionate about this ancient craft with skill and ability. Stimulated by the aesthetic sense of the past, father and son, set up a workshop in which the shapes they researched and created themselves are mouth-blown by traditional Tuscan glassmakers in Empoli, then ground and engraved using ancient sixteenth-century techniques, with motifs born of the Galgani's inexhaustible imagination or culturally inspired by designs of objects seen and studied in Florentine museums (Uffizi, Galleria Palatina, Museo degli Argenti, etc.). Marcello and Lorenzo Galgani were also Masters in the difficult art of restoration, bringing rare and precious objects back to life. As mentioned the company recently closed and disposed of all its last production, only Marcello's old private museum collection remained, which includes unique and special objects created over time, a collection that the craftsman made available to us for a planned sale. All of the objects were made entirely by hand with old grinding wheels, but there were mainly two tools that allowed the creation of masterpieces: the right hand and the left hand of the master craftsman. Ancient glassmaking techniques were used for all the ground and engraved products: first the object was ground with an emery wheel fed continuously by a jet of abrasive sand and water, then re-polished with a very fine-grained sandstone wheel also fed with water; the engravings were done freehand using as many as 10-15 small stone wheels for each design (flowers, branches, animals, etc. ); then the object was polished and shined; we must make, at this point, an important clarification on these last two operations: towards the end of the 1960s acid crystal polishing was devised, the object was immersed and rotated in a solution of sulfuric acid, fluoridic acid and water and in a short time all the defects left by the previous processes were eliminated, it was a fast, industrial operation that allowed to lower costs considerably, with discrete but not excellent results. But for Galgani's products polishing is done with a cork bark wheel wet with water and pumice, to make the surfaces more transparent. Finally, polishing was achieved with a felt wheel wet with a paste of water, iron oxide, and cerium oxide. This series of processes takes an average of two days of work( sometimes much longer) for each object, each engraving or grinding is the result of the creative inventiveness of the two craftsmen, inventiveness that transforms crystal into a material reality of the highest aesthetic value and inestimable value. All objects in the entire collection have never been used; they were part of the exhibition. Large oval crystal vase...

This pair of neoclassical rython form garnitures are well detailed and finely cut.

Cut crystal. Bronze mounted. Swan motif. Finely chased. Measure: Base is 3.5" by 3.5".

A beautiful, small, English Wedgwood Jasperware urn vase in the neoclassical design style, circa 20th century, England. Piece is a matte stonew...

Mid-20th Century Neoclassical Revival urn vase with faux-painted marble banded wood base featuring a Roman scene in bas relief. Decorative use only.

A good quality pair of late 19th century French marble and gilded ormolu urns, each with classical Rans head mounts, supported by three out-swept supports, terminating in hoof feet a...

Two beautiful pieces attributed to Ludwig Moser. Manufactured in Karlsbad, Czech Republic around 1930. These two small vases are something special.

A Large Pair of 19th Century French Ormolu-Mounted Chinese Famille Verte Porcelain Covered Vases/Pot-Pouries, with Daoist Emblem Cartouches. Each vase is made of famille verte porc...

A large Russian neoclassical malachite, Campana shaped urn or Vase, the ormolu twin handles modeled with acorns, on a circular spreading foot with square stepped plinth, 19th centu...