Lot 70

Bianca Carraro, sister of Francesco Carraro, the noted collector and founder of the Fondazione Carraro at Ca' Pesaro in Venice, was born with her six siblings into an industrial family from the Veneto. As a founding partner of Antonio Carrao S.p.A., a leader in the production of compact tractors for specialized agriculture, Bianca was the first woman in Italy who received a Master’s degree in geology, specializing in mineralogy. A formidable person with profound knowledge of art, culture and music, Bianca spoke fluent German, and mantained a great passion for German literature, especially the work of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Deeply rooted in the Veneto, she spent her summers between the Lido and the Dolomites, soon becoming an expert on the southern Limestone Alps, studying its rugged and bizarre rock formations and its 200-million-year history. After living in Vienna, Munich and Rome, Bianca settled in Campodarsego, where she helped in the expansion of the Antonio Carraro company throughout Europe. Bianca’s curiosity guided her collecting spirit, as it did her brother's. Extensive travels in China, India, Russia, Brazil, the United States and Morocco formed her eye and engaged her in the arts. By the early 1960’s she started her collection of Italian post-war art, design and particularly Murano glass. She was driven by a love for beautifully hand-made objects, the fascination for different materials and the extraordinary colors she found in Venetian glass works.In the late 1960s, Bianca was in search for a collaborator who could design her house and the interiors. Like her brother Francesco in Venice, Bianca engaged Gilda D’Agaro for the interior of her new house in Campodarsego. D’Agaro had collaborated on projects with Carlo Scarpa for years, including the now famous showroom for Olivetti on Piazza San Marco in Venice. D’Agaro was a perfectionist, and like Bianca, shared the same rigorous design aesthetics and appreciated her firm opinions and understanding of art, culture and architecture. One of Bianca’s favorite designs of D’Agaro’s furniture was a monumental desk, executed in cherry wood. Prominently placed on the right side of the pen tray stood an important example of Thomas Stearns double incalmo vase, in anthracite-black and amber opaque glass (lot 70). Bianca saw Venini’s Stearns vitrine at the 1962 Venice Biennale and soon after added this example to her growing collection of Murano glass. It was the work of Fulvio Bianconi which most fascinated Bianca and she formed a close rapport with the artist through Galleria Blanchaert in Milan. Her recollection of Bianconi was of an artist with an enormously creative mind, but also being “maldrestra”, a bit clumsy, not attached to money and only wanting to speak to people who understood his effort in creating his art. Acquiring examples of the famous Scozzese series by Bianconi was not an accident. Bianca considered the example offered here as lot 71 to be the center of her collection. Appreciating the immense difficulty in the making of the vase, its complicated design and in particular the choice of colors, she considered the vase a reflection of the spirit of 1950s in Italy. As part of the war generation, Bianca did not condone wasting money, but loved to spend it on good things. Always impeccably dressed in Missoni, her sense of style extended to the choice table ware for her dinner table: cutlery by Carlo Scarpa (lot 75) and Scarpa’s famous battuto “High Society” glasses for Venini (lot 76).As her niece Lilliana Carraro states: “Our aunt had the greatest passion for Murano glass. It had a central place in her life and her understanding and knowledge of the subject came from her deep involvement with the culture of her time. Like to our father Antonio and our uncle Francesco, art enriched her life. We are grateful, as nieces and nephews, for such special “art” memories.”Lars Rachen, Venice, September 2019PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF BIANCA CARRARO

THOMAS STEARNS (1936-2006)

A 'Doppio Incalmo' vase, circa 1962

Details

THOMAS STEARNS (1936-2006)
A 'Doppio Incalmo' vase, circa 1962
iridescent anthracite, translucent corniola and amber coloured glass in doppio incalmo
executed by Venini & C., Murano, Italy
6 x 5 ¼ in. diameter (15.5 x 13.5 cm.)
underside incised venini italia

Literature

Other examples illustrated:
M. Barovier, R. Barovier Mentasti, A. Dorigato, Il Vetro di Murano alle Biennali 1895-1972, Milan, 1995, p. 97, for a period image of the model at the XXXI Venice Biennale, 1962;
M. Barovier, C. Sonego, Thomas Stearns alla Venini, exh. cat., Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice, 2019, p. 127 for a period image of the model at the XXXI Venice Biennale, 1962, pp. 29, 102-103, 117, 127-28, 187-88.

Brought to you by

Jeremy Morrison

jmorrison@christies.com +44 (0)20 7752 3274

Lot Essay

The present lot model was presented as part of a series of vases which Thomas Stearns showcased in occasion of the XXI Venice Biennale, in 1962 (illustrated) alongside others such as the Sentinelle and a Cappello del Doge. The vase was executed using the traditional Muranese Incalmo technique, which allowed two or more parts of different colour glass to be combined together by fusing sections of exact equal diameter.

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