Incollect Magazine Issue 7

114 www.incollect.com Iridescence The Toso family was renowned for their use of iridescent glass, a centuries-old technique the Toso designers incorporated to achieve an especially luminous effect. Iridescent glass reflects various colors, obtained by a special process in which, as dealer Paul Donzella explains, “While he is shaping it, the artist holds the article over the vapors of melted salts of metals like tin and titanium. The vapor makes the white glass exhibit the component colors of the rainbow.” Donzella is offering one of the most popular designs by Ercole Barovier, a large and expressive Grosse Costolature vase in heavy iridescent Murano glass with incised decoration. Colors vary on these pieces as they were often designed to mimic the look and feel of marine life. Sommerso Sommerso, the Italian word for “submerged,” is the Murano glassmaking technique of creating multiple layers of contrasting colored glass without mixing together the colors. Master glassmakers create the effect by dipping colored glass into molten glass of a different color, any number of times, then blowing the glass into a form, widely used for creating bottles, vases, and sculptures. Venfield is offering a Barovier & Toso sommerso table lamp from the 1960s. This technically complicated and beautiful object employs several glassmaking techniques, sommerso as well as bullicante in which air bubbles are blown or injected into the glass to form controlled patterns. There are also avventurina throughout. Casanova has a Barovier & Toso glass bowl in the Zebrato Sommerso pattern, with many layers of zebra-like stripes in dark brown alternating with clear glass infused with extensive gold leaf. Top: 1960s Barovier & Toso Murano glass table lamp with sommerso, bullicante, and avventurina decorative techniques, carved and gilded wood base. From Venfield on Incollect. Bottom: Barovier & Toso “Zebrato” sommerso pattern Murano scalloped rim glass bowl with clear glass alternating with brown in the sommerso technique, enhanced with gold leaf inclusions in the protruding ribs. Circa 1980s. From Casanova Venetain Glass & Art on Incollect.