Seguso Murano Italian Art Glass Cobalt Gold Aventurine Footed Vase Sculpture

Dimensions: H: 16.0, W: 8.75, D: 8.75 IN

Seguso Viro Murano Hand signed underneath.

Dimensions: vase measures approximately 16" tall and 8.75" across the widest area.

Good-quality Seguso Murano (probably 1980's or 1990s, Memphis Milano era) With Avventurina gold flecks.

Murano glass modernist sculpture vase;

They also did work for Cartier- a number of fine mid century craftsmen and artists did work under the Seguso name amongst them

Flavio Poli, Barovier Archimede Seguso, Livio Seguso, Giampaolo Seguso and Mario Pinzoni. This is an incredible piece.

Livio Seguso

Born in 1930 in Murano, where he still works, Livio Seguso began his life-long affair with glass from a very early age, fascinated by the inexhaustible appeal of that wonderful medium. After having achieved an in-depth knowledge of the traditional glassmaking techniques, and stimulated by his strong artistic sensitivity, this artist turned to plastic forms, and his research led him to explore with avid interest the world of the of the great masters of contemporary sculpture. In those years, glass was not used as a medium of mere depiction, but it was in itself the very object of his artwork. Seguso's mastery of his medium was such that it allowed him to express himself completely without being hampered by the limits of craftsmanship. The artist fully revealed the infinite potentialities of this mysterious material in an endless variation of spaces and thicknesses, always aiming at an absolute purity of forms. Livio Seguso reached his full artistic maturity in the late 70's, when he totally abandoned the Murano Venice glassmaking heritage, however noble, and began to focus on clear crystal, changeable and ambiguous in its transparency, the perfect medium for the artist's uncontaminated imaginative vision. His sculptures could then manifest themselves in forms of absolute purity, non-mimetic and non-representational of anything, reaching out to seize the principle of a visible event that was undisclosed before that moment, and, in doing so, reveal the personality of the artist, attracted by synthesis and icastic form. His sculptures thus became Images of Light that seem to adapt themselves to thought only to fade away into a series of oneiric forms.In recent years, his artistic research overstepped the confines of the medium used, experimenting with other materials like steel, rock, marble, and granite, and, more recently, wood. His artwork also took a departure from his previous rounded or elliptical forms, and he began to conceive volumes in a more geometrical pattern. This in turn was to lead to an ideological turning point, not only in the choice of mediums and their poetical potential, but also to an ideational transmutation that enhanced the artist's expressive possibilities. The new mediums, always used in combination with glass, exalt both the transparency of this material and the intensity of the light, and their ultimate purpose is to create an ideal union between intellectual rigor and the neatness of the volumes, between the sense of refined elegance and poetic imagination.

Murano glassmakers created cristallo—which was almost transparent and considered the finest glass in the world. Murano glassmakers also developed a white-colored glass (milk glass called lattimo) that looked like porcelain. They later became Europe's finest makers of mirrors. Murano glassmaking began a revival in the 1920s. Today, Murano and Venice are tourist attractions, and Murano is home to numerous glass factories and a few individual artists' studios. Its Museo del Vetro (Glass Museum) in the Palazzo Giustinian contains displays on the history of glassmaking as well as glass sculpture samples ranging from Egyptian times through the present day. The Venetian glassmakers of Murano are known for many innovations and refinements to glassmaking. Among them are Murano beads, cristallo, lattimo, chandeliers, and mirrors. Additional refinements or creations are goldstone, multicolored glass (millefiori), and imitation gemstones made of glass. Aventurine glass, also known as goldstone glass, is translucent brownish with metallic (copper) specks.

Calcedonio is a marbled glass that looked like the semi precious stone chalcedony. This type of glass was created during the 1400s by Angelo Barovier, who is considered Murano's greatest glassmaker. Ercole Barovier, a descendant of Murano's greatest glassmaker Angelo Barovier, won numerous awards during the 1940s and 1950s for his innovations using the murrine technique. Sommerso is a form of artistic Murano glass that has layers of contrasting colors (typically two), which are formed by dipping colored glass into another molten glass and then blowing the combination into a desired shape. The outermost layer, or casing, is often clear. Sommerso was developed in Murano during the late 1930s. Flavio Poli was known for using this technique, and it was made popular by Seguso Vetri d'Arte and the Mandruzzato family in the 1950s. This process is a popular technique for vases, and is sometimes used for sculptures. Some of Venice's historical glass factories in Murano remain well known brands today, including De Biasi, Gabbiani, Venini, Salviati, Barovier & Toso, Pauly, Berengo Studio, Seguso, Formia International, Simone Cenedese, Alessandro Mandruzzato, Vetreria Ducale, Estevan Rossetto 1950 and others. The oldest glass factory is Antica Vetreria Fratelli Toso, founded in 1854.