Fazzoletto Zanfirico

In the 13th century, Venice moved its already world-famous glass production to the island of Murano. At the beginning of the 20th century, manufacturers such as Venini & C. contributed to the revival of Venetian glass. The Fazzoletto (“handkerchief”) presented here was created in 1948 as a collaboration between the illustrator and designer Fulvio Bianconi (1915-1996) and Paolo Venini (1895-1959). As an original reinterpretation of the Cartoccio vase, which the Ticino-born artist Pietro Chiesa (1876-1959) designed for the FontanaArte glass factory in 1932 and which had already inspired the famous glass-manufacture Seguso Vetri d'Arte in the late 1930s, the Fazzoleto quickly became one of the most emblematic pieces of glass art of the 20th century. The vase is available in various sizes, colours and decorations. The Fazzoletto shown here was produced using a special technique known as zanfirico (vetro a retorti) after Antonio Sanquirico, a 19th century Venetian art dealer. It is a pattern of alternating clear and coloured glass rods, twisted in one direction, which create a net pattern when placed on top of each other. The shape of the object is then completed by a circular movement by the glass master in the technique known as the “flying hand”. This reveals the soft, sinuous folds that are characteristic of the Fazzoletto, producing an interplay of light and shadow that makes each piece unique.