A Large Mid Century Graniglia Murano Glass and Brass Eight-Light Chandelier
A Large Mid Century Graniglia Murano Glass and Brass Eight-Light Chandelier
The chandelier oflarge scale and architectural ambition, conceived on a horizontal rectangular plan. The elongated brass bar — of flattened oblong form with chamfered terminals — supports eight curved brass arms, four to each side, each issuing upward and outward to carry a hand-blown glass uplight shade of broad tulip form. The shades of clear Murano glass worked in the graniglia technique, the surface densely encrusted with fine crystal powder or controlled micro-bubbles, producing a frost-like luminous texture that diffuses light with extraordinary delicacy.
Each shade is further embellished at the rim with applied scroll and leaf details in matching textured glass.
The chandelier is centred by a substantial articulated glass stem composed of stacked and flanged elements — ribbed cylindrical sections alternating with compressed disc collars — suspending from a brass-mounted canopy via a chain. The verticality of the central stem, combined with the bold horizontal spread of the bar and arms, creates a composition of refined geometric tension entirely consistent with the progressive Venetian design language of the immediate postwar decades.
The graniglia surface treatment — achieved by rolling molten glass over crushed crystal powder before a final gather — and the upward-facing tulip shade form are among the most celebrated and technically demanding of Barovier's interwar and postwar innovations. Multi-shade Murano glass chandeliers with elegantly shaped brass mounts are well-documented in the Barovier output of this period, with closely comparable examples known in six- and eight-shade configurations. Barovier & Toso multi-arm chandeliers of the 1940s and 1950s are characterised by curvilinear glass arms, upturned shades with refined surface detailing, and central stems with fluted glass elements. The unusual horizontal bar format of the present lot — evoking a dining room chandelier of significant presence — places it among the more architecturally ambitious productions of the type
Italy, Mid 20th Century
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