Large 18th Century Alabaster Copy of the Medici Vase

An exceptional pair of large alabaster lidded vases in the manner of Lorenzo Bartolini (1777-1850). The lidded urns of baluster form, are finely carved from translucent alabaster the...

A late Georgian neoclassical chimneypiece in the manner of Robert Adam carved in white statuary marble with yellow Sienna marble inlay. The ...

A fine late 19th century Neapolitan patinated bronze figure of the Venus de Medici after the antique. Likely cast by the Fonderia Sommer, Naples. The F...

An exceptionally fine eighteenth-century Piedmontese pier mirror. The ornately moulded frame is surmounted by elaborate scrolling foliate surmount, which looms over the mirror plate....

Set of two large 18th century Neoclassical giltwood vasesa pair of carved and giltwood handled centre vases, on square base, portapalme realized in carved Cembran pinewood with Neoclassical foliate motifs carved with vegetal patterns. Could be mounted as large table lamps or used as decorative vases. This pair of antique lamp bases...

The vases have a baluster shape and are richly decorated with foliage and acanthus. The foot is multiple and decorated, the shoulder has a band of peripheral foliage with mounted and...

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 from 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, and 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, and 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 artisans, inventiveness that transforms crystal into reality material of the highest aesthetic value and inestimable value. All the items in the entire collection have never been used; they were part of the exhibition. Large crystal vase with base; the decorations, graceful and delicate, are in Neoclassical style. The object is "one-of-a-kind" signed by the Master; it was created in Marcello Galgani's workshop in 1981 and made with the techniques (grinding, engraving, and polishing) we explained in the description; for the shape, the Master was inspired by a vase found in a painting, preserved in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence by the 16th-century painter Jacopo Ligozzi...

Pair of large antique style Medici vases in grey marble, 20th century. Pair of large antique-style Medici vases in grey marble, 20th century. H: 34cm, D: 28cm