PROGRAMME

Wednesday, 11march
Session 1
chairperson Rosa Barovier Mentasti
9.30 a.m.
Rosa Barovier Mentasti
Opening remarks

Chiara Squarcina
The birth of the Glass Museum of Murano

10.00 a.m. Rosella Mamoli Zorzi
"Foresti" in Venice in the second half of the 19th century: their passion for paintings, brocades, and glass.
Abstract - English and American "foresti" - both residents or occasional visitors—spent much of their time going to museums and churches, but also shopping at the best known Venice antiquaries, such as Guggenheim, Favenza, Clerlé and others. Among those who left diaries, or who actually made tiny or superb collections of antique objects - including glass - we find Daniel and Ariana Curtis, the owners, from 1885, of the upper floors of the Palazzo Barbaro at San Vidal; Isabella Stewart Gardner, who visited Venice for the first time in 1884, and collected a number of "antique" Murano glass objects; Mrs. Bronson, who lived in the Palazzino Alvisi from 1875, with her small salon and her collection of tiny glasses; and of course Sir Henry Austen Layard, the most important, and amply studied, British figure as regards the revival of Murano glass. One should also mention James Jackson Jarves, American, who gave his Venetian glass collection to the Metropolitan Museum in 1881, choosing the different pieces with the help of the South Kensington Museum curator Nesbitt and of Abate Zanetti himself. The love for hand-made objects and blown glass or hand-made mosaic was a reaction against industrial production, in a movement launched by Ruskin and developed in the Arts and Crafts Movement created by William Morris in the 1880s. Most of the salons of these residents or visitors were frequented by young painters, who shared a taste for recording simple life in Venice, representing lacemakers or "impiraperle". Among these painters there were John McNeil Whistler, John S. Sargent, Anders Zorn, Robert Blum. 11.00 a.m. coffee break

11.30 a.m. Marco Verità
Raw materials and glassmaking technology in the Murano glasshouses of the 19th century.
Abstract - Chemical analyses and ancient recipes are compared to reconstruct the main features and innovations of Venetian glass compositions during the 19th century. 12.30 a.m. lunch

Session 2
chairperson Marco Verità
2.30 p.m. Rosa Barovier Mentasti, Cristina Tonini
Nineteenth century Venetian glass and the museums' collections.
Abstract - Several private collections of ancient Venetian glasses were acquired by European and American museums as main nucleus of their museums' glass sections. Amongst them almost unknown is Salviati's firm collection of ancient glasses, preserved till 1872 in their headquarters based in Campo San Vio / Venice. It was then sold in an auction and several pieces entered the Edinburgh National Museums. The ancient glasses of the museums were copied in Murano's glassworks in the Revival period. The nineteenth century imitations of these glasses have been reevaluated and are to be considered as an important document to study the original models from which they took inspiration. william gudenrath The Fall, Winter, and Spring of the Venetian Glass Industry: Changing Times and Changing Techniques. Abstract - The gradual decline in Murano's glass production during the later 18th century led to a near cessation of sophisticated glassworking on the island during the first half of the 19th century. If one considers the 1708 collection of Venetian glass in Copenhagen's Rosenborg Castle as representative of the twilight of a golden age, and the mid- 19th century work of Graziati, Bigaglia, Radi, and Salviati & Co. as representative of the dawn of a new age, some seven generations of workers passed. While it is often said that fine glass working in Murano has a continuous tradition reaching back to the Middle Ages, purely on a technical basis, close scrutiny of objects suggests a discontinuity. In terms of the techniques of virtuoso glassworking, the 19th century reestablishment of the craft in Murano was arguably more of a reinvention than a revival. Through the use of comparative photographs and videos of the speaker's process reconstructions, the lecture will focus on a number of definable and consistent technical differences between earlier and later Venetian glass.

4.30 p.m. coffee break

4.45 p.m. Speeches or comments by

Suzanne Higgott
The Wallace Collection E. W. Cooke (1811-1880), English marine artist, diarist and collector: the formation and dispersion of his Venetian glass collection.
 Abstract - The Victorian artist Cooke's diary provides an exceptional record of the way in which a well connected, much travelled London glass collector acquired, transported, displayed and disposed of his collection. Cooke made several extensive visits to Venice. His passion for Venetian glass was at its height from 1863 to 1865 and his posthumous glass sale at Christie's in June 1880 included 550 Venetian lots. More than 40 glasses from his collection are in the British Museum. Cooke's diary and the museum's documentation provide a fascinating insight into how this came about.

Isabelle Biron
Laboratoire du Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France (C2RMF), Paris, France
Specific chemical compositions of 19th century glass.
 Abstract - Glass made during the 19th century appears generally very specific and different from ancient glass. Pure raw materials coming from the young industry, new provenance for minerals ores, new technological processes for the preparation of these materials and for the fusion of the glass (furnaces), as well as new colorants and opacifyers appear. All these elements, which allow us to distinguish a 19th century glass from a glass made during the previous centuries, will be presented in general for different European glass productions including some examples for Venetian glass.

Francoise Barbe
Musée du Louvre
Renaissance Venetian enameled glasses in the Louvre collection: their provenance in the 19th c.
Abstract - The collection of Renaissance Venetian enameled glasses in the Louvre Museum is one of the largest in the world. Constituted between 1825 and 1893, thanks to several acquisitions, bequests or donations, the collection contains about fifty pieces. The study of their provenance in the 19th c. provides the opportunity to understand better when the taste for this precious objects appears and develops in Paris.

Dana Rohanová and Hedvika Sedlácková
Department of Glass and Ceramic, University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague and Archaia Brno o.p.s., Czech Republik
Venetian goblets and their domestic imitations found in the refuse pits in Bratislava, Slovakia (ca 1550-1600)
Abstract - in our work we will present the goblets (approximately1550-1600) from several refuse pits in Bratislava (one of the most important towns in the Hungarian kingdom). In the refuse pits were found goblets made of Venetian origin glass and a domestic potassium glass. The richest collection from a palace of aristocracy contained about 40 goblets from the 2nd half of the 16th century. The presentation shows the similarity and the differences in the forms of both groups of goblets, which was confirmed by the chemical analyses of more than 20 goblets.

Kitty Laméris
Some interesting filigrana glasses
Abstract - Investigating filigrana glass I found several fascinating glasses. In this talk I would like to introduce some of them: filigrana glass found in Japan, a filigrana glass with Murrine and a drinkuyt or bell recovered after two hundred years.

7.00 p.m. Private visit to the private collection de Boos-Smith
The collection includes hundreds of pieces, selected and arranged according to the various glassmaking techniques, and recovers the "applied" antique style of the 19th century in Murano, when objects in filigree, millefiori, aventurine and chalcedony glass, inspired by Renaissance and Baroque glass art, were distinguished by their technical finesse, decorative virtuosity and audacious colours. The pieces came mainly from the English market of the time, collected by Fiorella and Phillip de Boos-Smith, of Italian and Australian families and living between Sydney and Venice: an emblematic collection of that 19th-century, typically English, taste that favoured colour, imagination and technical expertise, taken at times to the limits of kitsch.

Thursday, 12march
Session 3

9.30 a.m. visit to the Archivio di Stato of Venice with Alessandra Schiavon
The aim of the meeting, to be held in the teaching room of the State Archives of Venice, is to provide an overview of the documents stored in the public archives of the Serenissima and conserved in the Franciscan Convent of S. Maria dei Frari, that provide insight into ancient glass manufacturing methods, the location of the furnaces on the island of Murano, the type of production and the laws governing the production of glass over the centuries. The original documents will be shown and a description provided of possible research lines.

chairperson Dora Thornton
11.30 a.m. speeches or comments by

Reino Liefkes
Victoria and Albert Museum
A pattern book of the Venice and Murano Glass Company Ltd.
Abstract - in 1963 the Department of Paintings, Prints and Drawings of the Victoria & Albert Museum acquired a unique document of late nineteenth century Venetian glass making. It is a glass-makers pattern book, comprising over 1595 numbered drawings from the Venice and Murano Glass Company Ltd. I will discuss the likely purpose of this booklet, its provenance and how can it be dated. I will compare some of the drawings in this book with other contemporary sources as well as existing glasses. This little known source also sheds some further light on the relationship between the Venice and Murano Glass Company Ltd, Salviati and the firm of M.Q. Testolini and the importance of London as a retail centre for Murano glass around 1900. Oxana Lopatina
The State Pushkin Museum of fine Arts,
Moscow Italian Glass in the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts

13.00 a.m. lunch

Session 4
2.30 p.m. speeches or comments by
  
Maria Joao Burnay
Ajuda National Palace, Lisbon
Collection of Murano in Ajuda National Palace: the rebirth of forgotten glassmaking techniques and the creativity of the Venetian glassblowers.
Abstract - When the princess of Savoy Maria Pia, daughter of King Vittorio Emmanuele of Italy, was engaged to King Louis I of Portugal in 1862, the rebirth of the old glass industry where Antonio Salviati was involved was already under way after a regression period with the Austrian occupation. In 1866 Venice became part of the kingdom of Italy. Despite the long distance, Maria Pia maintained regular contacts with her family and country. During her visits to Italy she had knowledge of the Italian artistic production such as Venetian glass of which she bought about 600 pieces. The Murano glass collection of the National Palace of Ajuda amounts to 592 objects of utilitarian and decorative glass. Most of them were acquired during the time the palace was this queen's residence, the period between 1862 and 1910.

Rainald Franz
MAK-Österreichisches Museum für angewandte Kunst
The Role of Venetian Glass in the Collection of the MAK - Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art: Pattern Piece, Collection Highlight and Aesthetic Inspiration.
Abstract - During the 150 years of collecting Glass in what used to be the Imperial Royal Museum of Art and Industry, the aspects of collecting Venetian Glass shifted with the change of purposes the museum as a public institution had to follow. First the institution was to serve as an exemplary collection for artists, industrialists, and the public, and as a center of training and continuing education for designers as well as craftsmen. Around 1900 it became a collection with mainly aesthetic value, serving as inspiration for artists teaching at the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts. Historic Venetian Glass and 19th century examples were purchased. These were published in a separate catalogue in 1951. In connection with the Venini Murano Glass exhibition, the first presentation of Venini glass in Austria, major purchases and gifts augmented the Glass Collection. The lecture gives an overview of the history and highlights of the collection of Venetian Glass at the MAK.  

Alexandra Rodrigues, Milene Almeida, Anísio Franco, Márcia Vilarigues
Venetian style objects from the collection of Ferdinand II.
Abstract - The collection of King Ferdinand II of Portugal (of around 200 glass objects) includes a large group of glass in the Venetian style (about 40%). A small set of these are now thought to be from the 19th century, but the attribution has been a challenge. A set of two glass goblets is quite peculiar and has been posing a lot of questions concerning its iconographic study and interpretation, and its conservationrestoration process. The Venetian style objects in this collection reveal the exquisite taste and sensibility of Ferdinand II to this type of glass, both in terms of his acquisitions of antiques and of innovations from the 19th century. Therefore, they are of great importance and with no known parallel in any other Portuguese collection. In fact, King Ferdinand II is nowadays thought to have been a pioneer in the matter of the taste for glass collecting in Portugal during the 19th century. In the second quarter of that same century, Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1816- 1885), Prince-Consort by marriage with the Portuguese Queen, Maria II (1819-1853), gathered an ample set of glassworks in his two main residences: the National Palace of Necessidades (Lisbon), and the National Palace of Pena (Sintra). Part of this collection has been transferred a couple of times, since the dismantling of the glass room in the National Palace of Necessidades (by the time its custody was delivered to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), which has direct consequences in today's interpretation of this collection. Provenance attribution, clarification on technological aspects and interpretation of the two glass goblets mentioned would definitely benefit by a rich discussion with experts in History and Art History of glass, and in Venetian 19th century technology.

4.00 p.m. coffee break

4.30 p.m. speeches or comments by

Luisa Ambrosio
Museo Duca di Martina Villa Floridiana,
Napoli The Duke of Martina and his collection of Murano glass and à la façon de Venise glass.
Abstract - Placido de Sangro, Duke of Martina, was born in Naples in 1829. He belonged to a well-known household that enjoyed close connections with the Bourbon court. Following the unification of Italy, he moved to Paris where he started to purchase objects of applied art, a venture that allowed him to contact the most important European collectors, such as the Rothschilds. It also allowed him to take part in the great universal exhibitions held in those years in London and Paris, which had contributed to kindling a strong interest for the application of art to industry. His collection included more than six-thousand pieces of western and oriental art, dated between the 12th and the 19th Centuries, mainly constituted by pieces in ceramic. After the death of his only son in 1881, the entire collection was inherited in 1891 by his nephew, also called Placido, the Count of Marsi, who, through his wife Maria Spinelli di Scalea, bequeathed it to the city of Naples in 1911. The collection was hosted in Villa Floridiana and the Museum dedicated to the Duke of Martina was opened to the public in 1931. The section dedicated to glasswork includes some two-hundred pieces, including artefacts from Murano and à la façon de Venise, in addition to a small collection of Bohemian and English glass, some painted glass and églomisé glass. Overall, the collection represents the most important periods in the evolution of the Murano glassmaking art; indeed, it includes precious examples of painted glass made between the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th century, goblets in crystal glass from the 1500s and a broad selection of "twisted glass" vases, in transparent, milk, or coloured glass, as was typical of the baroque culture between the 17th and 18th Centuries. The collection is completed by a selection of pieces realised à la façon de Venise, that bear witness to the success of Murano glass: the collections of Catalan and German glass are of particular interest.

Elisa Sani
Rainer Zietz Limited European Works of Art and Sculpture
New light on Venetian Cameo Glass.
Abstract - The paper will discuss one of the rarest type of glass: cameo glass produced by the Compagnia Venezia e Murano between the late 1870s and 1880s, through one of the only two pieces known that are signed and dated by Attilio Spaccarelli. In an intellectually challenging way typical of the best 19th century revivalist works, the glass presents numerous facets of interest; from the wide-ranging and insightful iconographic sources, to the presence of a unique feature: a metal foot probably made by one of the best goldsmiths of the time.

María Cristina Giménez Raurell
Museo Cerralbo Madrid
Venetian Glass in Museo Cerralbo.
Abstract - The Marquis of Cerralbo (1845-1922) created this house-museum that shows the way the Marquis and his family lived until 1927. Its works by El Greco, Tintoretto make these collections very well-known. Throughout the Palace there are colorful Venetian glass chandeliers, lighting not only the lounges of the Main Floor (Galleries, Ballroom...) but also the private rooms, like the gondola-shaped one in the Parlour (Mezzanine Floor). Why does the Cerralbo Museum have more than fifty Murano pieces in its collection? It can be perfectly understood because The Marquis of Cerralbo was the delegate of the pretender to the Spanish throne: Carlos de Borbón, who had his official residence in the Loredan Palace, where they frequently met. Throughout the two floors (Bath Room, Dressing Lounge, Empire Sitting Room, Banquet Room, the Marquis's Office, Dining Room and Bay Window Room) there are vases, goblets, pens and micro mosaic mirrors, jewellery boxes and souvenirs blown and worked in Venice in the period between the Nineteenth and the Twentieth century

Antonio Pires de Matos, Andreia Ruivo (vicarte and requimte), Marta Maranha (vicarte), and Margarida Alves (vicarte)
1 VICARTE, Research Unit "Glass and Ceramics for the Art", Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa
2 REQUIMTE, Chemistry and Technology Network, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa,
Colour in glass through the ages
Abstract -In this communication a short description of the use of glass colour through the ages will be reported. It will be focused, but not entirely, on the use of the red and yellow colour, due to chromophores in a colloidal state. The colours of some objects of the museum collections will be shown, as well as innovations in the colouration of glass.

7.00 p.m. Visit to the exhibition Within Light / Inside Glass an intersection between art and science with Francesca Giubilei
8 February-19 April 2015 - Palazzo Loredan, S. Marco 2945 Campo S. Stefano, Venezia, Italia
This exhibition is an initiative of VICARTE (research unit "Glass and Ceramics for the Arts", of the Faculty of Science and Technology of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa and the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Universidade de Lisboa). It was conceived and coordinated by António Pires de Matos, Isabel Silveira Godinho, and Andreia Ruivo of Vicarte and promoted by VICARTE and the Istituto Veneto di Scienze Lettere ed Arti with the patronage of "UNESCO-2015 Year of Light " On the occasion of the international "Year of Light" 2015, VICARTE has organized this exhibition as a way to communicate to a larger audience the artistic and scientific research in the field of glass and light interaction. The exhibition, curated by Rosa Barovier Mentasti and Francesca Giubilei will include the works of 15 international artists, invited to develop projects on the theme of glass and light. The results are works that speak of the interaction between the two from a formal and conceptual point of view.

Friday, 13march
session 5
9.30 a.m. demonstrations of workmanship in Murano by Davide Fuin
Davide Fuin grew up around glass on Murano, often accompanying his father to his job at Barovier & Toso. Although he was too young to actually work, he was fascinated by the activity and the interactions between the glassblowers. When he was fifteen, he left high school and, as was required at that time, he went to work at a glass factory. What was generally considered a punishment, was for him a revelation. He found his calling. In 1968, he began working at Venini and in 1980, a number of masters, including his father, left Barovier & Toso to open their own factory, Toso vetri d'arte. He joined his father and began working with the master Carlo Tosi Caramea. By the late 1980s, Fuin was considered a young maestro and a new factory, Elite Murano, offered him the position of first master, with his father as the principal assistant and support. In the late 1990s, Fuin founded D.F. Glassworks with two assistants. They primarily produce glasses and stemware, together with museum reproductions in Venetian style. Although he doesn't consider himself an artist, he takes great pride in his abilities to carry on the specific craft and language of forms developed in the furnaces of Murano over the last thousand years.

11.30 a.m. Visit of the Museum of glass in Murano
The museum is housed in the ancient Palazzo dei Vescovi of Torcello. Since 1923 it is part of the Musei Civici Veneziani. The collections are chronologically ordered: in addition to an archaeological section, which includes notable Roman finds from between the first and third century AD, it boasts the largest historical collection of Murano glass, featuring ù important pieces from between the fifteenth and twentieth century, including world-renowned masterpieces. Particularly important are the collections of Renaissance glass in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. During the visit, which will be directed by Rosa Barovier Mentasti and guided by the Director of the Museum Dr. Chiara Squarcina, it will be possible to have access to the deposits of the Museum to study some of the most important pieces. http://www.visitmuve.it/it/musei/
 
3.00 a.m. lunch

6.00 p.m. Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti
final session Rosa Barovier Mentasti
The world puts on mosaics.

Iscrizione:
Le domande di partecipazione verranno inviate via e.mail (ivsla@istitutoveneto.it) entro il 15 gennaio 2015.
Le domande saranno accompagnate dal curriculum, nel quale venga messo in evidenza l'interesse per la materia e gli studi precedentemente compiuti nel settore.
Le domande verranno esaminate dal comitato scientifico che compirà una selezione sulla base dei titoli presentati e delle motivazioni indicate. Nella selezione delle domande si cercherà di favorire la partecipazione di candidati provenienti da paesi e ambienti culturali diversi. I partecipanti si impegneranno a frequentare tutti i corsi, seminari e visite in programma. Al termine, verrà rilasciato un attestato di partecipazione.
Il numero dei posti disponibili è limitato e non superiore a 30.
E' richiesta una quota di iscrizione di 300 €.
I partecipanti provvederanno a loro spese al viaggio e alla permanenza a Venezia. L'organizzazione provvederà all'organizzazione dei corsi, al viaggio a Murano e alla visita al Museo Vetrario e alle dimostrazioni pratiche in fornace a Murano.
Due posti potranno essere assegnati senza il versamento della quota di iscrizione a giovani dottori o dottorandi di ricerca che ne facciano domanda e il cui curriculum corrisponda agli studi oggetto delle Giornate.
Un posto sarà riservato, senza pagamento della quota di iscrizione, ad un partecipante proveniente dall'area del Sud-Est Europa, selezionato in collaborazione con l'Ufficio UNESCO a Venezia.  

Edizione 2014
Giornate di studio sul vetro veneziano. 1700 circa

Edizione 2013
Giornate di studio sul vetro veneziano. 1600 circa

Edizione 2012
Il vetro rinascimentale veneziano. 1500 circa.