Sommerso Vase

FF has a nice midcentury example of a technically challenging type of glass; Sommerso, or “submerged” – a technique requiring skill and dexterity which developed in Murano, Italy in the 1930s. His vase is in three colors of glass (colored amethyst to cobalt to crystal clear) and stands at 8” tall. It weighs quite a bit, as many layers of glass create a thickness of a one-inch wall which grows to two to three inches as the vase tapers to the base. 

The base is completely flat, which means that the base was polished to eradicate all traces of a lumpy pontil mark. A pontil mark is a scar that is left behind when the glassblower breaks the pontil rod (the tube that carried his breath) off the finished glasswork. Some glass pieces may have an indented saucer shaped polish mark on the base, and some pieces, likely the lighter glass goblets, have no polished pontil, and will show the rougher break at the bottom of the cup. Most high value Murano vases have glass bases that are polished flat on the foot, especially those sommerso pieces that are heavier. Not to polish a pontil flat would compromise the literal balance of the work of art. 

Sommerso involves submerging a blown piece of glass into molten glass of another color. A maestro like Carlo Scarpa would have initially blown an inner core vessel. This is dipped into a pot of molten glass of another color, and this process can be repeated on another three or four layers. Any time during the process, the existing base glass (or glass pieces as the work develops) may shatter as it is placed inside the molten glass being blown around it. An artist’s good mind for weights and balance is required because, as you can image, multiple thick layers of glass can make the vessel heavy. Further artistry is created by adding gold leaf to the clear layer of glass on the outside, or sections of bubbles in the glass in the deepest section, or striped rods of multicolored glass blown in to the center or base to add depth and intensity. The illusion is to create gravity-defying submerged and immersed colors that lay upon each other without the slightest hint of mixing at the borders. 

Sommerso involves
submerging a blown
piece of glass into
molten glass of
another color.

Another Maestro of this technique, and the one that made sommerso famous, was Flavio Poli, Artistic Director of Seguso Vetri d’Arte; his midcentury creations fetch thousands of dollars. Not all sommerso glass is by Poli, however – other furnaces in Murano that made this type of glass were Mandruzzato, Formia, and Paolo Venini, all working in the 1950s. Present day masters include Oball/Oggetti, the Onesto Family, Cenedese, Venini, and Barovier & Toso. 

All Murano artists’ predecessors came to the Island of Murano in the 13^th century. At that time, the Glass Blowers Guild was removed from the island of Venice, because the structures/buildings of that watery city could not withstand the prolonged high temperatures of the glass furnaces. The City Fathers moved the Venetian Guild, which operated under strict rules and secret formulas and undisclosed techniques, to Murano. Venice glass blowers had been active since the 8^th century when, under Roman occupation, Byzantine artists brought the formula of glass making to Venice. 

Perhaps the most challenging technique of all colored glass used in sommerso glass is a color between lime green and yellow, which, when seen under ultraviolet/UV illumination, glows. Stunning photos of the greenish glowing glass can be seen when shot with 365nm illumination. You can identify the presence of uranium by exposing it to black light as well. Uranium glass (in its transparent form sometimes called Vaseline glass in England and the U.S. in the early 20^th century) used uranium to color glass from the 1910s till the period after the mid 1950s, when Murano began to experiment with the color. In the U.S., because of WWII and the Cold War, the U.S. Government did not allow production of uranium glass since uranium oxides and salts were banned from commercial use. 

Early pre-1950s uranium glass could reach an order of 25% by weight of the vessel, and after 1950, 2%. An interesting museum tracks household objects, toys, and such things as uranium glass dinner plates, estimating the radiation exposure we all had from our early 20^th century commercial products. This institution is the Oak Ridge Associated University’s Museum of Radiation and Radioactivity.

Not only is FF’s sommerso glass beautiful, but thankfully it contains no yellow/green glass! The value
is $500.