Wright Auction

Like the generations of Baroviers who preceded him, Ercole was a maverick and his designs are invariably lush and powerful. His influence on Murano glass too is vast to describe in a few words.

Over the years the Intarsio series, designed by Ercole Barovier in the early 1960s, has become an icon of post war Italian glass. The technique involves the use of colored glass tesserae which are composed and then blown into the desired form. The use of bright colors creates a tightly controlled, contrasting pattern and one that in the end feels sort of holographic, changing dramatically when viewed from various angles and in varying light. Like some of the brightly colored glass objects made at Venini in the post war years—most notably the Pezzato series by Fulvio Bianconi—Barovier was focused on the creation of bold patterns but with the added element of dimension. When we look at the two examples in this sale, it seems impossible that the colors exist on the same plane, the depth of the color seems to go beyond the actual thickness of the glass. This is amplified because of the flattened lollipop forms. As we look into the pieces, we essentially see a double pattern. Ercole Barovier’s designs from this period were also strongly connected to post war art, fashion and graphic design. But his creations go beyond precise patterns—they are elevated too by something unusual in Murano glass and that is scale. Large works are of course harder to control, but Ercole Barovier did not shy away from large forms and his work is that much more exciting because of this. Like the generations of Baroviers who preceded him, Ercole was a maverick and his designs are invariably lush and powerful. His influence on Murano glass is too vast to describe in a few words.