Vase in clear glass with a series of glass bubbles inside, rim in blue glass

Experimenting with an extremely daring technique previously adopted in the 18th century, Napoleone Martinuzzi designed a series of vases in clear glass with small sculptures featuring mostly animals, flowers, marine motifs inserted hot inside. When used as bases for lamps, the wares were filled with water to achieve a magnifying lens effect for greater emphasis on the figures inside.

The special feature of these objects in clear glass consisted in the abstract decoration inside consisting of a series of tiny glass balls molten together as an extremely audacious decorative solution at the time.

The vases were presented to acclaim at the 1930 Venice Bienniale, where La Casa bella magazine lauded these “bowls with the precious levity to which a flower may add the exquisite resonance of a memory, lamps made to shed soft diffused light and strange boules with shimmering interplay of reflections of water, glass, and coral, decorative sculpture brimming with a discreet sense of caricature.”

Bibliography

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 358.