Large, luminous, fish-shaped sculpture in vetro pulegoso on metal stand

This luminous fish-shaped sculpture is one of the most extraordinary beings to emerge from Napoleone Martinuzzi’s fervent imagination. The pulegoso glass has been shaped into an extravagantly imaginary fish. The light source is inserted in its metal base.

A rare example of luminous sculpture, it had no equal in the Murano production of the time in terms of either executional audacity or liveliness of caricature.

Gio Ponti offered the following words of praise for this new material created by Martinuzzi on the pages of Domus in 1929: “The pulegoso glass allows the sculptor and creator of Venini glass the most amusing inventions, offering him the material most appropriate for the solidity of his design and volumes.”

Bibliography

Franco Deboni, I vetri Venini, Allemandi, Torino 2007, vol. II, fig. 22; Marino Barovier, Napoleone Martinuzzi. Venini 1925-1931, Skira, Milan 2013, exhibition catalogue (Venice, Le Stanze del Vetro, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, 8th September 2013 - 6th January 2014), page 396.