Pair of Venini Art Deco "Reticello" Murano Glass Italian Sconces, 1930s

View Similar Items

Pair of Art Deco Sconcesattr to Venini and Carlo Scarpa, Murano, Italy, 1930s

Large Venini Style Murano Glass and Brass Sconce Flushmount, Italy

VENINI Art Deco ‘Sconces MURANO GLASS RAME SMALTATO 1930 Italy

Pair of Vintage Venini Murano 'Reticello' Glass Sconces

Murano Flush Mount / Sconce by Venini

Italian Pair of Art Deco Style Textured Gold Pink & Crystal Murano Glass Sconces

Pair of Murano Sconces or Flush Mounts, Venini style Esprit series, circa 1968

Pair of Murano Uplight Sconces

Art Deco Sconce in Hand Sculpted Murano Glass, Italy

Patchwork Murano Wall Sconces by Venini, 3 Available

Want more images or videos?

Request additional images or videos from the seller

1 of 15

Pair of Venini Art Deco "Reticello" Murano Glass Italian Sconces, 1930s

About the Item

A pair of elegant round ceiling lights with reticello glass by Venini, with brass mounts. This wonderful set was produced in Italy during the 1930s. This is an exceptionally beautiful pair because of the state of the set, the size of the lights but especially the subtlety of the reticello. An amazing pair of endless elegance pieces that will match perfectly to an art deco living room or entrance hall. Reticello which translates into "small reticles", is an Italian decorative glassblowing technique. This method involves canes organized in a crossed pattern to form a fine net. If done the traditional way, small air bubbles will be trapped in a grid pattern between the crossing canes. Scarpa was born in Venice. Much of his early childhood was spent in Vicenza, where his family relocated when he was 2 years old. After his mother's death when he was 13, he moved with his father and brother back to Venice. Carlo attended the Academy of Fine Arts where he focused on architectural studies. Graduated from the Accademia in Venice, with the title of Professor of Architecture, he apprenticed with the architect Francesco Rinaldo. Scarpa married Rinaldo's niece, Nini Lazzari (Onorina Lazzari). However, Scarpa refused to sit the pro forma professional exam administrated by the Italian Government after World War II. As a consequence, he was not permitted to practice architecture without associating with an architect. Hence, those who worked with him, his clients, associates, craftspersons, called him "Professor", rather than "architect". His architecture is deeply sensitive to the changes of time, from seasons to history, rooted in a sensuous material imagination. He was Mario Botta's thesis adviser along with Giuseppe Mazzariol; the latter was the Director of the Fondazione Querini Stampalia when Scarpa completed his renovation and garden for that institution. Scarpa taught drawing and Interior Decoration at the "Istituto universitario di architettura di Venezia" from the late 1940s until his death. While most of his built work is located in the Veneto, he made designs of landscapes, gardens, and buildings, for other regions of Italy as well as Canada, the United States, Saudi Arabia, France and Switzerland. His name has 11 letters and this is used repeatedly in his architecture. One of his last projects, the Villa Palazzetto in Monselice, left incomplete at the time of his death, was altered in October 2006 by his son Tobia. This work is one of Scarpa's most ambitious landscape and garden projects, the Brion Sanctuary notwithstanding. It was executed for Aldo Businaro, the representative for Cassina who is responsible for Scarpa's first trip to Japan. Aldo Businaro died in August 2006, a few months before the completion of the new stair at the Villa Palazzetto, built to commemorate Scarpa's centenary. In 1978, while in Sendai, Japan, Scarpa died after falling down a flight of concrete stairs. He survived for ten days in a hospital before succumbing to the injuries of his fall. He is buried standing up and wrapped in linen sheets in the style of a medieval knight, in an isolated exterior corner of his L-shaped Brion Cemetery at San Vito d'Altivole in the Veneto. In 1984, the Italian composer Luigi Nono dedicated to him the composition for orchestra in micro-intervals A Carlo Scarpa, Architetto, Ai suoi infiniti possibili.

Creator:
Venini (Manufacturer)
Attributed to:
Carlo Scarpa (Designer)
Dimensions:
Height: 4.93 in (12.5 cm)Diameter: 9.06 in (23 cm)
Sold As:
Set of 2
Style:
Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)
Materials and Techniques:
Art Glass,Brass,Glass,Murano Glass
Place of Origin:
Italy
Period:
1930-1939
Date of Manufacture:
1930s
Condition:
Wear consistent with age and use.
Seller Location:
Roma, IT
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU3067321975912

Shop All Venini

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 in the centuries-old glass workshops on the Venetian island of Murano. While the company’s 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 Giò Ponti, Massimo Vignelli, Finnish designer Tapio Wirkkala, Thomas Stearnsof 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 took over the company as his own in 1925, and under his direction it produced mainly classical Baroque designs. In 1932, he 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 century — Venini has produced one of the truly great bodies of work in modern design.