A RARE 'MURRINE OPACHE' DISH, CIRCA 1962

As explained by Anna Venini de Santillana in her catalogue raisonné, Carlo Scarpa returned to Venini in 1961 to design a large polyhedral waterfall chandelier which was presented in the Venetian Pavilion at the ‘Italia '61’ Expo in Montréal. This monumental chandelier was one of many extraordinary works of enormous size that were manufactured by Venini in those years. At that time, along with lighting, Venini continued to create special objects including impressive works in murrine glass. Carlo Scarpa also revisited the murrine technique which he used frequently in the 1940s, this time working from polychromatic rather than transparent themes- indeed his murrine are almost always opaque and the use of a processing wheel gives them a considerable thickness. Ludovico Diaz de Santillana, son-in-law of Paolo Venini, who after the death of the latter had taken over the direction of the furnace, designed very thoughtful, intellectual, thin objects made of an almost transparent murrine glass. The new collection of murrine by the two designers was presented to the public at the Venice Biennale of 1962. In particular, the blue tone of the present lot represents one of the architect’s favorite colors, which he used several times in various projects. Scarpa was known to apply this blue hue to wall coverings, using the ancient technique of " Spatolato Veneziano" (Venetian plaster), and on a limited number of furniture designs produced by Simon Gavina in the early 1960s.

Another example of this model can be found in the Fondazione Carraro, Ca' Pesaro, Venice.