CARLO SCARPA (1906-1978) AN IRIDATO BOWL, MODEL 3920, CIRCA 1940
executed by Venini, lightly iridescent hand-blown glass
2 ¾ in. (7 cm.) high, 4. 1/2 in. (11.7 cm.) diameter
CARLO SCARPA (1906-1978) AN IRIDATO BOWL, MODEL 3920, CIRCA 1940
executed by Venini, lightly iridescent hand-blown glass
2 ¾ in. (7 cm.) high, 4. 1/2 in. (11.7 cm.) diameter
M. Barovier, Carlo Scarpa. I vetri di Murano, Venice, 1991, p. 113 for a similar example; M. Barovier, Carlo Scarpa. Glass of an Architect, exhibition catalogue, Brescia, Palazzo Martinengo, Milan, 1998, p. 147 for a similar example; Exhibition catalogue, Venetian Glass: the Nancy Olnik and Giorgio Spanu Collection, American Craft Museum, New York, 2000, p. 44 for same model illustrated; M. Barovier, Carlo Scarpa. Venini 1932-1947, exhibition catalogue, Le Stanze del Vetro, Milan, 2012, pp. 303, 313 for other examples of this model.
The architectural simplicity of this bowl epitomizes Carlo Scarpa’s designs in the 1940s and the form was favored by the revered American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1951, Frank Lloyd Wright purchased ten bowls of this model directly from Venini during a trip to Venice. Wright and Carlo Scarpa met for the first time in Florence in 1951 on the occasion of the exhibition ‘Frank Lloyd Wright: Sixty Years of Living Architecture’ and their next meeting took place in Venice shortly thereafter, when Wright was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Venice. The crate with the ten bowls of this model along with another six works by Scarpa appears to never have arrived at Taliesin and the location of all of these works is unknown. The Venini invoice, dated 8 October 1951, documenting the purchase of the bowls and the other works by Scarpa for Venini was only recently discovered in the Frank Lloyd Wright archives.
Scarpa applied the same technique of iridizing several layers of glass used in the present bowl for a series of works exhibited at the VII Triennale in Milan and the XXII Biennale in Venice in 1940.
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