Wright Auction

As with the work of Vittorio Zecchin, Carlo Scarpa’s designs for MVM Cappellin have become recognized as masterworks of 20th century design. Like Zecchin, Scarpa was influenced by antique forms, but from a more diverse point of view. Drawing inspiration from ancient Assyrian carved and molded glass, Phoenician core-formed vessels, ancient Chinese and Japanese ceramics, and Byzantine, Islamic and Venetian glass from the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Scarpa was able to synthesize elements from these historic and cultural sources and re-cast them in the context of 20th century art and design. Because of this, Scarpa’s work at MVM Cappellin is considered prescient, if not genius.

The exhibition, The M.V.M Cappellin Glassworks and The Young Carlo Scarpa 1925–1931 at Stanze del Vetro in Venice, documents Scarpa’s earliest work as a glass designer and demonstrates the strength and diversity of his vision. The use of vibrant colors and opaque glass present in Scarpa’s work for Cappellin was something new and unexpected and subsequently changed the assumption that transparency and lightness were prerequisites in the design of Murano glass. That said, Scarpa continued to employ Soffiato glass at Cappellin for the production of refined utilitarian objects, lighting, and for elegant vessels, all of which, possess the elemental power of sculpture. 

It is also important to note that much of Scarpa’s glass for Cappellin was largely experimental and both difficult and expensive to make—this is why pieces are so rare and highly valued by scholars and collectors today (it also helps explain why the Cappellin company went out of business in 1932).

Much of what Scarpa learned at Cappellin he brought with him to Venini where he famously served as art director from 1934 until 1947. And while Scarpa’s work for Venini is well known, his work for Cappellin is just beginning to be understood.