A Venetian latticinio glass large standing bowl, late 16th century

The Bagnasco Collection, Lugano, Switzerland, his sale, Christie’s London, 28 March, 2000, lot 181;

Sold Sotheby’s London, 21 November 2006, lot 78;

Where acquired

Musée Ariana, Geneva, Verre de Venise - Trésors Inédit, 17 May-18 September 1995, no. 197.

E. Baumgartner, Verre de Venise - Trésors Inédit, Exhibition Catalogue, Musée Ariana, Geneva, pp. 67 and 108, cat. no. 107  

The present bowl is exceptional for its large size. A number of smaller footed tazze with ‘nipt diamond waies’ survive: One tazza, 11 cm high, has since 1868 been in The British Museum, London, reg. no. S.598, illustrated in H. Tait, The Golden Age of Venetian Glass, London, 1979, p. 67, cat. no. 86. Another tazza, 13cm high, is in The Robert Lehman Collection, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 1975.1.1216, illustrated in D. P. Lanmon and D. Whitehouse, Collection Catalogue, Vol. XI, New York, 1993, pp. 145-46, cat. no. 53, where the authors note other surviving examples. A taller wine goblet formed in this manner is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, acc. no. C.188-1936. The term “Nipt diamond waies”, used to describe a technique of manipulating vertical ribs with pincers to form a diamond pattern, is first recorded in a 1677 advertisement for the English glassmaker George Ravenscroft (1632-1683) and his new lead glass.