Carlo Scarpa, circa 1970 © Lino Bettanin - CISA A. Palladio- Regione Veneto

NEW YORK, NY.- Christie’s announced the sale of Carlo Scarpa: Visions in Glass 1926-1962. A Private European Collection, taking place on May 4, 2017 at Christie’s New York. The sale features the only single-owner collection of works by the Venetian architect and designer Carlo Scarpa ever to be sold at auction to this day. 

Encompassing approximately 90 pieces of Italian art glass, the collection provides an overview of the pioneering styles Scarpa created for M.V.M. Cappellin and subsequently Venini between the years 1926 and 1962. In his collaboration with the two glassmakers and in particular with Venini, Scarpa developed a modern vocabulary for the century-old techniques of glass making and paved the way for the resurgence of the island of Murano as a center of glass with a modern outlook. Deeply influenced by his training as an architect, Scarpa developed a range of new surface treatments and techniques, while being inspired by ancient Roman glass as well as Chinese works of art. 

The pieces included in this collection encompass over forty years of his creations, offering a body of work which is unparalleled at auction. Incredibly modern and rich of a great variety of shapes, colors, and techniques, these objects laid the roots of contemporary glass-making in Venice and beyond. Highlights include An Important ‘Murrine Opache’ Dish, circa 1940 (estimate: $100,000-150,000), A Rare ‘Murrine Romane’ Vase, circa 1936 (estimate: $40,000-60,000); and A Rare ‘Velato-Inciso’ Vase, circa 1940 (estimate: $30,000-40,000). 

Born in Venice, Carlo Scarpa was a unique figure among second generation Modern architects, being at once deeply embedded in the historical culture of Venice, and at the same time weaving the most Modern of spatial conceptions into its material fabric. At the very beginning of his career as an architect, the first traditional material Scarpa engaged with was glass, one of the most ambiguous, allusive and atmospheric materials employed in the making of architecture. In his work with Cappellin and Venini, starting in 1926, Scarpa explored the glass-making art, recovering ancient Roman techniques as well as discovering new methods of transforming glass. 

HIGHLIGHTS | LIVE AUCTION | MAY 4, 2017 

Lot 73. Carlo Scarpa (1906-1978), An Important 'Murrine Opache' Dish, circa 1940. Estimate: $100,000-150,000. © Christie’s Images Limited 2017.

produced by Venini, fused glass, with original cardboard presentation box; 2 3/4 in. (7 cm.) high, 14 5/8 in. (37.1 cm.) wide, 9 3/8 in. (23.7 cm.) deep, with original retailer's foil label reading CALIARI-VENINI TORINO, box with printed mark venini murano

The Murrine Opache technique must be considered as amongst the architect’s greatest technical and stylistic achievements. Revealed at the XXII Venice Biennale of 1940, these important and revolutionary forms represented the triumph of years of meticulous technical innovation, and deliver abstracted surfaces described by intuitive, painterly verve.

Archive photographs of the Biennale record a cornucopia of vases, vessels and bowls, primarily of sober, minimalist form and of solid colour. The foreground offers four glass trays, each describing an alternative interpretation of the Murrine Opache technique. The importance of this display was profound – for not only was the arrangement representative of innovative new techniques across myriad applications and within a variety of forms, but the installation appears to have been conceived and arranged as a chromatic narrative, encouraging the observer to succumb to a sensation that offered parallel, entwined narratives of both the Antique, and of the Modern. The 1940 Biennale was triumph, not only for Scarpa and for Venini, but for Italy’s stature at forefront of the creative and artistic avant-garde.

Scarpa’s reinvention of the Murrine Opache technique was revolutionary. In this instance, the murrine is a tiny glass cube, cut from an internally-decorated glass cane. The process required the meticulous alignment of these cubic murrine, fused together in the furnace, and allowed to slump-cool to predetermined form. The exceptionally thin wall of fused murrine was finished by sensitive grinding and polishing to a matte reflective surface. The origins of this technique can be traced to ancient Roman glass, with Scarpa deriving further inspiration from his appreciation of Byzantine mosaic. Together with Paolo Venini, Scarpa first assessed this ancient technique with his Roman Murrine series of 1936, and was subsequently refined with the Murrine Transparenti, and the Laccati Neri e Rossi series of 1940. Both these techniques were also exhibited alongside examples of the Murrine Opache at the 1940 Biennale. These forms were pure, architectonic vessels, polished to high brilliance, and with the murrine structures suppressed to near-invisibility.

The cubic personality of these tiny glass murrine cannot be understated, as the cube and the square remained persistent structural and decorative features within Scarpa’s subsequent career as an architect. The mosaic floor of the Olivetti showroom in Piazza San Marco, Venice, 1957 is a celebrated example, however also noteworthy is the irregular mosaic floor created for the Bellotto House, Venice, 1944-46 – a project commenced whilst Scarpa was still with Venini – and which bears comparison to at least one of the dishes presented at the Biennale four years prior. Numerous other architectural projects can be cited, many of which feature two-dimensional applications of abstract cubic mosaic as floor or wall surface treatments, or three-dimensionally as in the example of the irregular, asymmetric platform created for the monument to the Women of the Resistance, Venice, 1968. The conceptual symbolism of mosaic, and by implication labyrinthine maze-like patterns, clearly held strong personal resonance for Scarpa. An early inspiration may have been the templates utilised for the mechanised production of woven and knotted textiles, an interest that Scarpa shared with the artist Bice Lazzari, the older sister of his future wife Onorina. Ambidextrous, in later life Scarpa’s right hand regularly bore a heavy Native American sterling ring, the surface inset with asymmetric turquoise mosaic inlay, a gift from his admiring friend Frank Lloyd Wright.

Revealingly, for the first time Scarpa now selected dishes as the medium through which to communicate the painterly qualities of his Murrine Opache technique. The flattened rectangular, circular or ovoid forms, often with irregular or undulating rims, represented the perfect canvas through which to frame the energy of his conceptions. The four dishes exhibited at the Biennale illustrated artistic variations of technique, evolving from pointillist or architectonic minimalism through to a stylized serpentine labyrinth, suggestive of an ancient mosaic fragment now abstracted to pure sensory pattern. Other examples, to include the present dish, invoke a stylised memory of the vibrant fields of flowers that surrounded Scarpa’s childhood home in Vicenza.

Since his appointment with M.V.M. Capelllin in 1926, Carlo Scarpa had rigorously assessed technical and stylistic possibilities within modern glass design. He was able to perfect multiple complex surface techniques, and had pioneered the transition from vessels that were blown, to structures that were constructed. By 1940, as confirmed by the seminal exhibition at the XXII Biennale, his virtuoso capacity for innovation was unrivalled, and his mastery of delivery was assured. The dishes of the Murrine Opache series illustrate pattern guided by process, and by turn process is determined by structure – revealing Scarpa as an innovator who imagines as an architect, yet describes as an artist.

The following lot is an exceptional and early example, and remains in excellent condition. By repute a wedding gift to the original owner, this fine and important example benefits from having been preserved, apparently unused, within the manufacturer’s original signed presentation box.

Literature: A. Venini Diaz de Santillana, Venini, Catalogue Raisonné 1921-1986, Milan, 2000, p. 148, n. 105, and p. 215, n. 143 for a highly comparable dish;
Exhibition catalogue, Venetian Glass: the Nancy Olnik and Giorgio Spanu Collection, New York, 2000, p. 94, n. 64 for this model illustrated;
F. Deboni, Venini Glass, Catalogue 1921-2007, Turin, 2007, pl. 92 for a highly comparable dish;
M. Barovier, Carlo Scarpa: Glass of an Architect, Milan, 1998, pp. 168-69, 221 no. 243 for another vase of this model; p. 274, n. 21 and p. 276, n. 27 for another dish of this model at the XXII Venice Biennale, 1940;
M. Barovier, Carlo Scarpa: Venini 1932-1947, exhibition catalogue, Le Stanze del Vetro, Milan, 2012, pp. 390-391, 395-397 for this model illustrated and design drawings.

Note: Related examples can be found in the Steinberg Foundation Collection, Vaduz, the Fondazione Carraro, Ca' Pesaro, Venice, and the Collection of Glasmuseum Hentrich, Stiftung Museum Kunstpalast, Dusseldorf. See images on previous page for these related works included in the exhibition, 'Venetian glass by Carlo Scarpa, The Venini Company, 1932-1947', at Le Stanze Del Vetro, Venice, August 2012 - January 2013.

Lot 65. Carlo Scarpa (1906-1978), An Important 'Incisi' Vase, circa 1942. Estimate: $20,000 - 30,000. © Christie’s Images Limited 2017.

produced by Venini, model 3763, hand-blown glass, engraved by Franz Pelzel, 5 1/2 in. (14 cm.) high, acid stamp venini murano

Literature: F. Deboni, Venini Glass, Its History, Artists and Techniques vol 1, Turin, 2007, p. 88 for another vase of this model exhibited at the XXIII Venice Biennale, 1942;
M. Barovier, Carlo Scarpa: Venini 1932-1947, exhibition catalogue, Le Stanze del Vetro, Milan, 2012, p. 353 for another vase of this model illustrated with a design drawing and period photograph. 

Note: Part of the Incisi series exhibited for the first time at the VII Milan Triennale, this rare example was engraved by Franz Pelzel, director of S.A.L.I.R. for over 50 years.

Lot 71. Carlo Scarpa (1906-1978), A Rare 'Murrine Romane' Vase, circa 1936. Estimate: $40,000 - 60,000. © Christie’s Images Limited 2017.

produced by Venini, model 4006, fused glass, 7 3/8 in. (19.7 cm.) high, acid stamp venini murano, later engraved F. Bianconi 1947 32

Provenance: Private collection of Fulvio Bianconi, Murano, acquired 1947.

Literature: M. Barovier, Carlo Scarpa: Glass of an Architect, Milan, 1998, pp. 117, 208, n. 71 for this model illustrated, p. 271, n. 11 for other vases of this technique at the VI Milan Triennale, 1936, p. 273, n. 19 for a period photograph of another vase of this model, circa 1936;
M. Barovier, Carlo Scarpa: Venini 1932-1947, exhibition catalogue, Le Stanze del Vetro, Milan, 2012, pp. 165, 174 for this model illustrated;
Venini, blue catalogue, pl. 48, n. 4006.

Note: The Roman Murrine series of 1936 defined a crucial development in Scarpa’s analysis of structure and of decoration. Conceived together with Paolo Venini, whose collection of ancient Roman vessels provided reference for inspiration, the series was revealed in 1936 at both Venice Biennale and Milan Triennale. Scarpa’s enthusiasm for ancient Roman forms is well-documented, and the earlier works produced first at M.V.M. Cappellin and those later at Venini assessed Classical forms and carefully-manipulated surfaces that referenced the Antique. This series evolved from analysis of Roman mosaic patterns, and of ancient fused-murrine glass vessels. 

The Roman Murrine technique required the fusing together of cubic elements of glass murrine, and was thus Scarpa’s first analysis of glass vessels that were assembled, or built, rather than objects that were simply blown. The archaic personality of these vessels was further enhanced by light surface polishing that emphasized – rather than eliminated – the artisanal personality of construction. As such, the Roman Murrine series introduced a new dialogue to Scarpa’s creativity, and inaugurated the analysis of murrine structures that would reach apotheosis with the Murrine Opache, Laccati Neri e Rossi, and Murrine Transparenti vessels exhibited at the XXII Venice Biennale, 1940.  

Lot 85. Carlo Scarpa (1906-1978), A Rare 'A Macchie' Bowl, circa 1942. Estimate: $35,000-45,000. © Christie’s Images Limited 2017.

produced by Venini, model 4424, hand-blown iridescent glass; 3 in. (7.5 cm.) high, 9 7/8 in. (25 cm.) diameter; acid stamp venini murano ITALIA

Literature: Exhibition catalogue, The Italian Metamorphosis, 1943-1968, New York, Guggenheim Museum, October 7, 1994- January 22, 1995, p. 252, fig. 251, for a related bowl; 
M. Barovier, Carlo Scarpa: Glass of an Architect, Milan, 1998, pp. 184, 224 no. 274 for this model illustrated, p. 286, n. 55 for related bowls at the XXIII Venice Biennale, 1942;
M. Barovier, Carlo Scarpa: Venini 1932-1947, exhibition catalogue, Le Stanze del Vetro, Milan, 2012, pp. 442, 446 for this model illustrated;
Venini, red catalogue, n. 4424.

Note: Just before Venini closed due to the war, Carlo Scarpa designed a series of extremely modern bowls and dishes. Very pure forms were decorated with minimalist colours and motifs: simple striped or dots in black and few other colors, very often with lightly iridescent surface. Scarpa is looking again at ancient Roman glass for inspiration, an example of which is a bowl decorated with drops from Cyprus (4th Century AD), in the collection of the British Museum. Only a few of these bowls were produced after the war and soon they disappeared from the Venini catalogues.