A Venetian glass footed bowl, early 16th century

Bonhams, London, 30 November 2011, lot 37.

A bowl of similar form with ribbed foot, blue trailed decoration and spiral gadroon moulding to the underside of the bowl is in the Wallace Collection, London, no. C515, illustrated by S. Higgott, The Wallace Collection, Catalogue of Glass and Limoges Painted Enamels, London, 2011, pp. 50-51, cat. no. 4. The form, with slight variations, was popular in the late 15th and early 16th centuries and an example features as part of a still life painting of 1617 by Giovanni Battista, where the bowl holds goldfish. Higgott discusses the difficult mezza stampaura (half moulding) process by which this bowl was made in detail, and explains that the method often caused bubbles of air to be trapped between the two gathers of glass and that the method was modified in the 19th century to avoid this. Other examples of similar form and decoration are in the RISD Museum, Providence, (object no. 2000.91) and the Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan.

Related Literature

A.-E. Theuerkauff-Liederwald, Venezianisches Glas der Veste Coburg, Lingen, 1994, pp. 102-103, no. 39;

H. Tait, The Golden Age of Venetian Glass, London, 1979, p. 58.