wine-glass
- Museum number
- 1999,0706.1
- Description
-
Wine glass; clear glass, free blown, the bowl with green threads melted in and pulled down to create a combed effect, the openwork stem formed of three intertwined rods.
- Production date
- 1906
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 98 millimetres
-
Height: 224 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- Designed by Harry Powell and made by J.Powell & Sons, Whitefriars Glass, London, as part of a 400-piece service commissioned by the Italian diplomat, Count Minerbi, in 1906 for his newly-acquired Venetian palazzo, the Ca' Rezzonico.
According to an unidentified newspaper cutting in the Whitefriars archive in the Museum of London, Count Minerbi had purchased Whitefriars glass from the firm's display at the Turin International Exhibition of 1902. Four years later Minerbi ordered a complete service. The cutting, entitled 'Foreigners beaten by British. Venetian glass to be sent to Venice' notes that 'as he wished to have the best glass he could procure he had come to the makers of the specimen he bought at Turin'. The order was for 'altogether nearly four hundred pieces, of the most exquisitely graceful design and of the surprising lightness in weight for which Venetian ware is famous'.
Other examples of glasses from the Minerbi service are held by Brighton Museum and Art Gallery and the Cannon Hall Museum, Barnsley, the latter including an example of the split stem wine glass (see ex. cat. Whitefriars Glass, Manchester 1996, pls 44-45).
See also 1999,0706.2 for another glass from the same service. The two silver-mounted centrepieces from the service are in American collections: Corning Museum of Glass and the Huntington Library & Art Collections, Los Angeles. In 1906 Minerbi had also commissioned a dining-room frieze for the Ca' Rezzonico from the British artist Frank Brangwyn, but the two men disagreed and the scheme was never executed (see http://www.frankbrangwyn.org/murals.html, accessed 30.12.2015).
- Location
- On display (G48/dc2)
- Condition
- good
- Acquisition date
- 1999
- Acquisition notes
- Part of a large service originally made for Count Minerbi (see curator's comment) and acquired by the dealer and collector Dan Klein in the early 1980s.
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 1999,0706.1
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: Minerbi Service
