Medicean Vase, in blue glass and gilt metal

Medici Vase, in blue glass and gilt metal. Blue ribbed mold-blown glass-metal, gilt copper, gilt bronze. Florence, late 16th century — early 17th century. h. 11,4 in. ; w. 8,3 in. (handles). This vase belongs to a group of very rare and extensively studied objects, the most significant examples of which are preserved at the Louvre (OA 1116 1 and 2), the British Museum (S. 714), Waddesdon Manor (inv. 3326-3330), Palazzo Madama (0036/VE), and Villa Floridiana (inv. 474), a group described as follows in the introduction to the catalog of Glass and Enamels at Waddesdon Manor : ‘The colours are normally emerald-green, deep blue, or blue-green. The gilt metal mounts run true to type, being characterized by horizontal bands with lappets of various kinds, often in the form of a fleur-de-lis, and vertical bands of strapwork often incorporating putto-heads ; the handles are usually ear-shaped, with or without external beading, but are also often of a fanciful character, incorporating more elaborate scrollwork, or term-figures; the feet are frequently lathe-turned.’ (Charleston, 1977). The base of the present vase is identical to that of a vase from this group, preserved at the Musée Ariana in Geneva, inventoried as Tuscan, dated between the third quarter of the 16th century and the first half of the 17th century. Both vases are colored, blown into a ribbed mold, with ribs that are very pronounced around the neck and gradually disappear towards the middle of the body, a remarkable detail in the most refined vases of this family. In both cases, a protrusion under the foot of the vase, which has not been polished by the glassmakers, 'demonstrates that these glasses were made expressly to be mounted and are incomplete without mounts.' (Kruger, 2006). On the bodies, the gilt metal decoration, which analysis of the Geneva vase has revealed to be fire-gilt copper, differs from one vase to another, probably depending on the prestige of each commission. The vase described here is midway between the Geneva vase, on the one hand, simply decorated with openwork vertical bands, without putti, and that of the Louvre, on the other hand, whose bands are richly adorned with putti heads all around the vase. Identical putti heads adorn the bronze handles of both vases, handles in the form of acanthus leaves also chased and fire-gilt, although the outline and ornaments of the handles are, like on the body, more modest on the Geneva vase. The dating of the vases and vessels of this group, between the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th, is not disputed, but their origin has been long debated. They have long been considered Venetian, although their glass, thicker and heavier, also darker, lacks the characteristic fancifulness of Venetian productions of that period. Their thickness has given rise to the hypothesis of a German origin, but none of the German colored glasses from the 17th century—at least, none of those that are certain—present a mount of this type: practically all ruby glass vases, for example, have gilt silver mounts—when they have one. Moreover, glasses of this type are depicted in at least three 17th-century paintings: the first two are still lifes, exhibited at the Prado, by the Hispano-Flemish painter Juan van der Hamen y León, born in 1596 and died before 1632; the third, a still life by the Neapolitan painter Giuseppe Recco, a contemporary of Hamen y León. The mount of the vases depicted in these still lifes is not exactly similar to those of this group, but their relationship is undeniable, and the probability that German glasses reached both Spain and Italy at that time seems very low. It is more probable, on the other hand, that Italian glass objects are found in Spain at the beginning of the 17th century. This Italian hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that one of the characteristic forms of this family is represented in a drawing, preserved at the Department of Drawings and Prints of the Uffizi, attributed to the painter and draftsman Jacopo Ligozzi. It is a bowl pinched at the lips, taking the form of a navicella, a type of which an example is preserved at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague. This drawing by Ligozzi shows not only the same navicella form, but also a mount very similar to those of the objects in the group, except that the foot, clearly designed to be in repoussé metal, is closer to a chalice foot than to a base. Other drawings attributed to Ligozzi also feature the form of the vessels of this family. It is also known that in 1567, Cosimo I attempted to bring a Venetian master to work in Florence, a first attempt doomed to failure, successfully repeated in the following decade: in 1579, a furnace was in operation in Florence under the direction of Master Bortolo d’Alvise, poached from a Murano glassworks known under the sign of the Tre Mori. This Florentine furnace was located in the Medici gardens, between San Marco and Via San Gallo, where it remained during the reigns of Francesco I and Ferdinando I de' Medici. In 1618, Cosimo II had a furnace built in the gardens of the Pitti Palace, and it was in August of the same year that another Venetian master, Jacomo della Luna, arrived, soon joined by his brother Alvise, and then by their uncle Ludovico, a year later. The very color of these vases, according to the Florentine glassmaking theorist Antonio Neri, aimed to imitate oriental gems, highly prized at the end of the 16th century, particularly in Medicean Florence (Tonini, 2011). Based on all these elements—the color and shape of the glass, the material, decoration, and fire-gilding of the mount—it is possible to date this blue vase from the end of the 16th to the beginning of the 17th century, that is, to the period of the pinnacle of Medicean decorative arts from Cosimo I to Cosimo II. Sources Robert Jesse Charleston and Michael Archer, The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor. Glass and Stained Glass, Fribourg, 1977 ; Ingebord Krueger, “Post-Medieval Colored Lead Glass Vessels,” in Journal of Glass Studies, vol. 48, 2006; Cristina Tonini, ‘Green Glass Vessels for the Pauline Chapel in S. Maria Maggiore in Rome: Notes on Medici Glassmaking’, in Journal of Glass Studies, vol. 53, 2011; Erwin Baumgartner, Reflets de Venise. Gläser des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts in Schweizer Sammlungen, Bern, 2015.