Gino Cenedese Murano Sommerso Vase

Amazing 12" Sommerso Art glass vase
Signed Gino Cenedese Murano
From the estate of Joel Bergman

From the Glass of Venice website:

Weaving together almost one hundred years of tradition and a unique sensitivity, the Gino Cenedese & Son glassworks is one of Murano’s finest and oldest glass companies. With a vocation for excellence and the love for traditional craftsmanship, the glass masters of this furnace have interpreted Venetian history through color and form, accomplishing global acclaim. The Cenedese Murano Glass is world-famous not only because of their indisputable quality and talent, but also because out of many Murano Glass companies, this is probably the one with the widest range of collections and variations.

The story of Cenedese fame begins in 1916 with a small 9-year-old boy, Gino Cenedese, who learned the most essential glassmaking techniques from different masters around Murano. By the end of the second World War in 1946, he founded the Gino Cenedese & C. glassworks, which immediately gained international recognition thanks to the high quality and refined style engraved in every piece. Although Cenedese opened this glass factory with important partners by his side (Angelo Tosi, Alfredo Barbini, Gino Fort and Pietro Scaramal), he was left as its sole owner by 1949, taking the factory through the twentieth century with vision and commitment.

Throughout the years, Gino Cenedese has had important collaborations with other Venetian masters and artists that have marked different periods in the company’s history. During the 1950’s, sculptor Napoleone Martinuzzi created a series of female figures in bas-relief glass panels that now embellish the company’s showrooms; while it was painter Luigi Scarpa Croce who helped develop their now famous Sommerso technique, where each colorful glass layer is submerged into another, creating beautiful effects. It was around this time that Cenedese also collaborated with another important designer, Fulvio Bianconi, who exposed the company’s artworks at the Venice Biennale in 1954. By the end of the 1960’s, artist Harold Stevenson took inspiration from the Venetian Lagoon and worked on several sculptures that reflected the beauty and diversity of the Venetian canals. Since the early 1970’s, the company held important collaborations with Venetian artist Antonio da Ross, expanding the possibilities of using glassware as valuable pieces of art, and focusing on submerged glass techniques such as the “Contrappunti”.