Cobalt Blue Scavo Glass Bottle Vase attributed to Mario Pinzon for Seguso, Italy, 1960s

MEASUREMENTS:
Height: 28 cm; Diameter: 12.5 cm; Weight: 0.902 kg

Item :
A refined artistic bottle-shaped vase, crafted entirely from blown Murano glass using the fascinating and complex "Scavo" technique. This piece is distinguished by the intense cobalt blue hue of the glass mass, which masterfully blends with the dark gray and brown crusty patinas distributed across the surface. This textured, opaque finish, achieved by hot-applying volatile mineral salts during modeling, has been expertly blended to recreate the iridescent shimmer and corrosion marks typical of archaeological glass from the Roman and Phoenician eras that remained buried for centuries. Structurally, the object displays executive details of the highest craftsmanship: the rounded, globular body tapers toward the top, grafting onto a shoulder delimited by a thin glass bead, embellished with a dense, meticulous texture of internal air bubbles. The long, slender neck is decorated midway up with a clear glass collar crafted in a "morfisa" style, that is, finely undulated and pinched while hot with pliers by the master glassmaker. The mouth opens into a flared, asymmetrical lip, while the base bears the characteristic breakage mark, intentionally left rough, in the center. The breakage mark is the metal rod used by the master glassmaker to support the object from the base during the delicate heat-forming phases; once the work is complete, the rod is detached with a sharp blow, leaving a circular, jagged glass scar on the base. The lack of ground finish on the base, combined with the intrinsic imperfections of the handcrafted glass, precludes any serial production, confirming the piece's absolute uniqueness. The piece is historically and stylistically attributable to the prestigious Seguso artistic glassworks and can be dated precisely to the first half of the 1970s (circa 1970-1975). The conceptual origins of the successful "Scavo" collection belong to the renowned designer and artistic director Mario Pinzoni, who conceived it for the glassworks in the late 1960s, achieving enormous international success at the Venice Biennale and at major decorative art exhibitions of the time. The attribution is supported by precise philological and technical evidence: the partial penetration of salts into the neck to dull the glass's brilliance, the carefully crafted chromatic contrast between the blue background and the transparent applications, and, above all, the specific type of wavy collar on the neck represent true trademarks of Pinzoni-Seguso production from that specific five-year period. As is typical for almost all pieces from this artistic line from the furnace, the piece does not feature an engraved signature, as the strong material identity of the surface texture was considered by the Murano masters to be a clear signature of the company.