description

Venice, second half sixteenth century, early seventeenth century.
Height: 19.5 cm

Detail Description

In 1980 Robert J. Charleston, former Keeper of Glass and Ceramics of the Victoria and Albert Museum, was asked to choose hundred glasses from the collection of the Corning Museum of Glass to visualize the history of glass. To illustrate the group of cristallo glasses made by the Venetians during the Renaissance, desired by every court because of their colourless appearance, he chose a glass very much like the one shown here (Robert J. Charleston, Masterpieces of glass, A world history from the Corning Museum of Glass, New York, 1980, cat.no. 38) and wrote the beautiful words:
If a true classic is considered an object that is perfect in the harmonious balance of its constituent parts and in the complete aptness of its component forms to the material from which it is made, then some of the Venetian glasses of the middle years of the sixteenth century may perhaps lay a stronger claim to this status than any made since the Romans (…).