Nice Murano glass designed by Carlo Scarpa

[Pierre Tavlitzki]

A specialty of the auction house Quittenbaum in Munich is the Murano glass. Quittenbaum develops its expertise in this field and now organizes two sales a year. The next events are scheduled for September 2 (Sale 076) and January 20 (Sale 081).

Quittenbaum seems to have abandoned the practice of press releases online, but its site is well done and it is easy to find the highlights.

On September 2, at number 07622, a vase created by Carlo Scarpa in 1934 and manufactured by Venini in Murano is estimated at 24 K €. It is cylindrical with two lateral pointy handles, and is 29.5 cm high. The matter is clear, with overlays of bubbles, a green layer and a gold foil finish. It is called sommerso a bollicine, and Google tells me that it means submerged in bubbles.

The previous lot, 07621, by the same artist and the same glassmaker, is another sommerso a bollicine, 24 cm high. It does not have a handle but is decorated with thin vertical lines of bubbles. It is estimated 9 K €.

[Pierre Tavlitzki]

The hammer result of this sale is disappointing. Only 31 lots were sold on 83. These results are not final because unsold lots may still find a buyer until October 2.

Lot 22, the main topic of this article, has not been sold, and lot 21 was just sold at its low estimate of 9 K €, before fees.

The highest price was obtained by an outsider, which had been estimated 4.5 K €. This Murano vase with complicated shape and brightly colored stripes, designed around 1960, rose to 13 K € before fees.