Medici 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).

Indeed, the pedestal of the present vase is identical to that of a vase from this group, preserved at the Ariana Museum 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 blown in a ribbed mold, with ribs that are very pronounced around the neck and gradually disappear toward the middle of the body, as seen in the most refined vases of this family. In both cases, a protrusion under the foot of the vase, left unpolished by the glassmakers, ‘demonstrates that these glasses were made expressly to be mounted and are incomplete without mounts.’ (Kruger, 2006). The colour of the vase itself — green in Geneva, but here a blue hinting at glass — can be explained by the imitation of oriental gems, which were highly prized at the end of the 16th century, particularly in Medici Florence (Tonini, 2011). On the bodies, the gilt metal decoration, identified through analysis of the Geneva vase as copper, varies from one vase to another, likely depending on the prestige of each commission. The vase described here stands midway between the Geneva vase, on the one hand, simply decorated with openwork vertical bands, and the Louvre vase, on the other, whose bands are richly adorned with putti heads all around the vase. Identical putti heads decorate the bronze handles of both vases, handles shaped as acanthus leaves also chased and fire-gilt, though the shape and ornaments of the handles, like those on the body, are simpler on the Geneva vase.

The dating of the vases and containers in this group, between the late 16th century and the early 17th century, is undisputed, but their origin has been the subject of lengthy debate. They were long considered Venetian, though their glass—thicker, heavier, and darker—lacks the characteristic fancifulness of Venetian productions from that period. Their apparent sturdiness led to the hypothesis of a German origin, but none of the colored German glasses from the 17th century—at least none definitively identified—feature mounts of this type: practically all ruby glass vases, for instance, have gilt silver mounts—when they have any at all. Moreover, glasses of this type appear in at least three 17th-century paintings : the first two are Prado still lives by the Hispano-Flemish painter Juan van der Hamen y León, born in 1596 and died before 1632 ; the second, a still life by the Neapolitan painter Giuseppe Recco, a contemporary of Hamen y León. The mounts of the vases depicted in these still lifes are not exactly identical to those of this group, but their kinship is undeniable, and the likelihood that German glasses reached both Spain and Italy during this period seems very low.

In contrast, the probability that Italian glasses were exported to Spain is much higher, and this Italian hypothesis is bolstered by the fact that one of the characteristic shapes of this family — namely, a boat-shaped bowl, pinched at the rim, examples of which are preserved at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague and the Victoria & Albert Museum—is depicted in a drawing held at the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe of the Uffizi, attributed to the painter and draftsman Jacopo Ligozzi. This drawing shows not only the same shape but also a mount closely resembling those on the aforementioned glasses, with the exception that the foot, clearly designed to be made of repoussé metal, is more akin to a chalice foot than a pedestal; and this is not the only drawing attributed to Ligozzi that echoes the form of containers in this family.

Furthermore, it is known that in 1567, Cosimo I attempted to bring a Venetian master to work in Florence—an initial effort that failed but was later successfully repeated, as by 1579 a furnace was operational in Florence under the direction of Master Bortolo d’Alvise, from a Muranese glassworks known as the Tre Mori. This Florentine furnace was located in the Medici gardens, between San Marco and Via San Gallo, and remained active during the reigns of Francesco I de’ Medici and Ferdinand I. In 1618, Cosimo II had a furnace built in the gardens of the Pitti Palace, and in August of that year, another Venetian master, Jacomo della Luna, arrived in Florence, soon joined by his brother Alvise and, a year later, their uncle Ludovico.

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.