Mid 20th Century Murano and Brass Chandelier Probably by Barovier

The elongated rectangular gilt-brass bar frame suspending ten ribbed and flared tulip-form glass shades, each blown in clear glass with costolature ribbing and scalloped rims enclosing individual light fittings, arranged five to each side along the horizontal bar; the whole suspended from a central twisted glass rope-form stem rising to a foliate glass canopy fitment.

The monumental scale and the disciplined repetition of the tulip-form shades along a rectilinear brass armature reflect the confident mid-century Murano approach to architectural lighting, wherein the vocabulary of Venetian glass blowing — here expressed through the characteristic ribbed a coste technique — was recast within a modernist idiom suited to the grand domestic and hospitality interiors of the postwar decades. The twisted glass suspension stem, a refined technical accomplishment in itself, adds a note of Venetian virtuosity to an otherwise restrained and architecturally resolved composition.