Venetian Glass Wines, Stirring Rods Copied

A New York design firm offered a line of new Venetian glass virtually identical in design and construction to antique and collectible Venetian glass. The "collection" included 11 wine glasses and 12 stirring rods, or swizzle sticks.

The new wines, made in a variety of colors, were reproductions of Venetian styles made from about 1880 to the late 1920s. Those turn of the century pieces were themselves copied from Venetian designs made in colorless crystal of the 15th and 16th centuries. The new swizzle sticks were whimsical figurals similar to original glass swizzles made in Czechoslovakia and Venice ca. 1920-30s.

All of these new pieces were made in Murano, Italy by skilled glass masters. Construction details of the new pieces are virtually identical to turn of century pieces. All the new wine glasses have very generous amounts of internal gold flecks. The new gold is indistinguishable from the old in color, fleck size and arrangement. Some pieces have fine gold "dust" rather than the larger flecks.

Applied trim and decorations on the new wines are made the old labor intensive way. Flowers, for example, are formed a petal at a time. The eyes in the dolphin are made of a small black disc of glass worked into a larger yellow ball of glass. That combined mass is then worked into the clear glass dolphin head. Several of the wine bowls are pattern molded and a number of the stems have internal stripes of colored glass. Each piece is individually blown and finished by hand and show slight irregularities just like originals. New pieces are also thin walled and very lightweight like the originals. None of the pieces are signed or dated.

Wholesale prices for the wine glasses ranged from $175-$225 in 1997. Some styles were also available at retail stores such as Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Henri Bendel and other specialty shops and mail order catalogs.

The swizzle sticks were available in 7" and 9" lengths. Sticks in the 7" size are all different colors; sticks in the 9" size are all amber. The figural ends in both sizes are multi colored. Wholesale $20-$25 per set of six.

Fig. 1 Dolphin stem 7" wine glass; clear glass figural dolphin with gold flecks, ruby red glass bowl and foot.

Fig. 2 New Venetian wine glasses all with gold leaf flecks. From left to right: green bowl/foot, clear crystal stem, 9"; cobalt blue bowl/foot, internal blue stripes in stem, applied flower, 9"; green bowl/foot, applied colored trim on clear stem; cobalt bowl/foot/stem, 8"; green bowl/foot, applied blue & clear trim on stem, 8". Wholesale price $175-$225 each, plus shipping.

Fig. 3 Clear crystal flared rim bowl and foot, internal green stripes in stem, applied flowers, 7".

Fig. 4 New Venetian glass swizzle stick. Actual size 7".

Fig. 5 New Venetian glass swizzle stick. Actual size 9".

Fig 6. New Venetian wines with gold leaf flecks. Left to right: Clear crystal bowl/foot, cobalt stem, applied cobalt prunts, 8"; lavender bowl, crystal stem/foot, applied flowers, 11"; pink cup/foot, crystal stem, applied flowers, 7"; amber bowl/foot, gray stem, 9".