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I found this vase on the weekend in Pickering. It caught my eye (the second time around the Market). I thought it had the look of the Foval line of Fry Glass. So….of course it came home with me.
It’s not leaning (I was).
I posted it and found out that it is likely Empoli Glass from Italy. I don’t know a thing about Italian Glass, but this is what a quick search on the ‘net tells me:
From the 20th Century Glass website:
“Italian Empoli Glass
Empoli glass – When most people think of Italian glass, they think of the many manufacturers based on the Venetian island of Murano. But there is another area of Italy with a long history of glass production – the town of Empoli, in the Tuscany region, near Florence. There is evidence of glassware being produced in Empoli as far back as the thirteenth century. There are two main types of Empoli glass – “Verde” and “Cased”. Verde (Italian for green) glass takes its name from the traditional green colour of Empoli glass, which was a result of the content of local sand used for glass production.”
This isn’t green and I don’t think it’s cased either. Opalescent or opaline. I saw some examples, with some resemblance, that are attributed to Stelvia (Società Toscana Esercizio Lavorazione Vetri Industriali e Artistici). According to the 20th Century glass this company was in existence from the 1950s-2001.
This is an interesting piece. It is a colour-shifter. Dramatically changes hues depending on the lighting. In the second photo you can see that the vase glows amber when exposed to natural lighting. Sometimes it takes on a very blue hue, but most of the time it looks pinkish.
I am going to keep this for now and keep trying to identify it. I still would like a piece of Foval though!
