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Salviati Miniature Glass Tazza

About the Item

In 19th-century Venice, glassmaking studios were pokey little family affairs. The craft was passed on from father to son, and conducted in a studio, with an assistant or two, and perhaps an adjoining shop. Antonio Salviati, however, was an entrepreneurial lawyer who took his cue from modern industry. In 1859 he established a large studio in Venice, manned it with teams of glassblowers, marketed the products, and sold them from an impressive emporium on the Grand Canal, as well as a showroom in London. Salviati pushed the envelope artistically as well as commercially, for he also revived the murine glass technique, which had lain dormant since Murano’s 16th-century glory days. Murrine glass is created from multi-colored glass canes that, after being heated and fused, are sliced and shaped into objects. And when those canes are densely packed, rather than spaced out in monochrome glass, the result is millefiori, or thousand-flower glass. First made in the ancient Middle East, the technique was copied by the Romans, and, following the 18th-century excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum, it was added to the Murano glassblowers' repertoire. Difficult to execute, the technique fell into desuetude until Salviati rediscovered it, and used it, like the ancient Romans, for making small precious objects. Decades later, in the 1940s, Carlo Scarpa employed it on a larger scale for Venini. Our millefiori tazza – a footed shallow cup – harks back to ancient Rome not only in technique, but form, since glass tazzi are still being unearthed, mostly broken, at archeological sites today.
  • Creator:
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 1.5 in (3.81 cm)Diameter: 3.75 in (9.53 cm)
  • Style:
    Classical Roman (In the Style Of)
  • Materials and Techniques:
  • Place of Origin:
  • Period:
  • Date of Manufacture:
    circa 1880
  • Condition:
    Wear consistent with age and use.
  • Seller Location:
    New York, NY
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU1061426168352

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