Salviati & Co.
A Gilt-Bronze and Venetian Agate Glass Tazza
£5,200
A Gilt-Bronze and Venetian Agate Glass Tazza, Attributed to Salviati & Co. Murano.The Agate (Calcedonio) glass dish on a gilt-bronze Renaissance...
Dimensions
Height: 14 cm (6 in)Width: 20 cm (8 in)
Depth: 16 cm (7 in)
PrintDescription
A Gilt-Bronze and Venetian Agate Glass Tazza, Attributed to Salviati & Co. Murano.
The Agate (Calcedonio) glass dish on a gilt-bronze Renaissance style stand modelled with cherubic handles and baluster stem.
Italy, Circa 1860.
The Calcedonio glassmaking technique was first used in Egypt during Roman times, and was re-discovered in Murano in the fifteenth century. The secret of the technique was lost again and subsequently re-discovered by Murano master glass-maker Lorenzo Radi (1803-1874) in the later part of the 19th century.
Lorenzo Radi “blew a sort of glass imitating the quartz of chalcedony agate, for which he was awarded a gold medal and two silver medals at the exhibitions of Venice in 1846 and 1869” (The Glass and Mosaic Industries of Venice By Salviati, Venice, 1922, p. 11).
Rods of white opaline and colour glass are fused under high temperatures with various mineral oxides to create colour-streaked glass characteristic of agate quartz.
Date
Circa 1860
Origin
Italy
Medium
Agate
Photograph of Dr. Antonio Salviati. Source – Salviati Venice. “The Glass and mosaic industries of Venice.” Treviso: R. Officine di Arti Grafiche Soc. An. LONGO & ZOPPELLI, undated (circa 1922). p. 3.
By the mid-19th century Venice as a centuries old centre of glass making was close to extinction. Pivotal to its revival was Dr. Antonio Salviati (1816-1890) who mounted a huge effort and succeeded in saving the city’s glass industry. Salviati was a lawyer by training but was appalled by the devastation that years of neglect had caused to the antique mosaic decoration of St.Mark’s Basillica. Encourage by Antonio Colleoni, the mayor of Murano, and a local priest, Abbot Vincenzo Zanetti, Salviati gave up his legal career and founded in Murano in 1859 a glassworks as the Laboratorio d’Arte Musivas Salviati Dott. In 1866 in collaboration with Antonio Barovier, Salviati opened a new glassworks that in 1872, with British sponsorship, took the name Venice & Murano Glass & Mosaic Company. It received numerous commissions from Great Britain (Memorial Chapel at Windsor Castle, altar at Westminster Abbey, 1867) and from Germany (Aache, Palatine Chapel, 1870-75).
Salviati exhibited at the world fairs and became one of the most prestigious manufacturers of Venetian glass production. As well as mosaics, Salviati & Co. produced ornamental tableware in coloured, enamelled, gilt and coated glass, reviving Renaissance, 18th century, and even Roman, specimens. Salviati collaborated with the visionary glass technician Lorenzo Radi (1803-1874) who rediscovered how to make Calcedonio glass imitating semi-precious agate quartz. Such creations were mounted in gilt-bronze. Salviati and Radi were awarded a gold medal at London’s International Exhibition of 1862. The South Kensington Museum, now the V&A, bought a superb metal-mounted chalcedony vase from Salviati at the exhibition, see https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1861/vase-radi-lorenzo/.
Literature:
Sheldon Barr, Venetian Glass – Confection in Glass 1855-1914, New York, 1998.
Sheldon Barr, Venetian Glass – Confection in Glass 1855-1914, New York, 1998.
