Venini - collectors' pieces of Murano glass
Design from Venice – Murano Glass by Venini
A modern vision for an ancient tradition. Venini has been synonymous with Murano glass art for over 100 years. The renowned brand was the first to combine the millennia-old craft of the glassblowers of Venice with the artistic ambitions of international designers. Whether legendary style icons or limited edition novelties, discover the extraordinary vases, glasses and sculptures from Venini at Artedona.
What is Murano Glass?
Murano glass is quite simply glass from Murano, a group of islands in the Venetian lagoon. It is located less than two kilometres north of the historic centre of Venice and has been the heart of Italian glass art since the 13th century.
Glass has been produced in Venice since the eighth century. To protect the city from serious fires, the city banished all glassblowers to the island of Murano in 1291. Concentrated in a single neighbourhood, the glass masters were able to keep their techniques and recipes, which had only been passed down orally, strictly secret for centuries. This irreplaceable knowledge made Murano one of the most famous glass centres in the world, which continues to fascinate enthusiasts and collectors to this day.
Venini – Pioneers of Glass Art
Some traditions have to be broken in order to preserve them. After the end of the Venetian Republic in 1797, Murano's glass craft fell into a long crisis. But when the Milanese lawyer Paolo Venini and the Venetian antiquarian Giacomo Cappellin founded a new glass manufactory in Murano in 1921, they laid the foundations for the new heyday of Murano glass.
The young workshop had a clear stylistic identity. It broke away from the old traditional patterns of its ancestors and sought to collaborate with forward-thinking artists from all over the world. This began with the famous Veronese vases by Vittorio Zecchin, which became the symbol of Venini. The company soon became the design pioneer of a new era.
Since then, Venini's work has been a driving force in the Italian design world. Countless great artists, architects and designers have worked with the manufacturer, from Carlo Scarpa, Gio Ponti and Fulvio Bianconi to Ettore Sottsass and Peter Marino. Venini continues to produce many of its most successful designs to this day, still entirely by hand.
Venini Design Icons
The glass masters of Murano have always been known for their innovative and refined techniques. Venini continues this tradition seamlessly, constantly pushing the boundaries of what is possible with new shapes and colours.
Crafted by masters of their art using the same tools as hundreds of years ago, each object is one-of-a-kind with its own personality. In the Artedona selection you will find the timeless classics of the manufactory in modern colours and limited editions.
The Fazzoletti vases are a joint design by Paolo Venini and Fulvio Bianconi. Like fabric blowing in the wind, the glass seems to flow and crease; no two vases are ever the same. The vases are created using the "mano volante technique", meaning "with a flying hand". The glass masters hurl the hot glass through the air in one swift movement. While still in motion, the glass cools and its dynamic folds solidify forever.
The spherical Monofiori Balloton vases also appear as soft as fabric. A sophisticated quilted pattern lends the glass a weightless grace. The neck of the vase is crowned by a coloured decorative rim, which is fused with the vase while still hot.
The Opalino vases are a timeless example of the overlay technique, in which glass is created with two different coloured layers. Their emblematic trumpet shape is a modern reinterpretation of antique vase shapes that can be staged in an infinite number of ways.
The Bolle bottles are a design by Finnish artist Tapio Wirkkala. They are created using the extremely complex incalmo technique, in which two individually blown glass bodies are joined together. The production of these fascinating bottles is so demanding that many individual pieces from the series are exhibited in art museums around the world.
