A light wind blows through the streets of Murano, mussing here and there the colorful skirts of women strolling by. The scene inspires Fulvio Bianconi in creating a’work that changes in form with each individual creation, rippled by the wind from the furnace. So much so that of each Opalini Handkerchief there is no identical one anywhere in the world.

Designer:Fulvio Bianconi and Paolo Venini

Made in Italy

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Processing: blown opaline, flying hand

Availability è è only indicative, stock è constantly changing.

Due to the special processing required for handcrafted productiondelivery times are to be confirmed for each individual product.

HANDKERCHIEF VENINI

Venini has been surprising us with original shapes and colors since 1921. It breaks the mould with tradition, opens the door to artistic avant-gardes, and places great importance on local craftsmanship by collaborating with master glassmakers in Venice. More than a century has passed, and still today artisans and artists meet at the Venini Furnace in Murano to bring to life Glass artworks Made in Italy that will tour the world.

FROM AN INNOVATIVE PROJECT, TO AN ARTWORK OVEN

The company is founded by Paolo Venini, a Milanese lawyer, Giacomo Cappellin, a Venetian antiquarian, and artist Vittorio Zecchin as artistic director. Paolo Venini is not a glassmaker, but he senses that chasing tradition will not make him stand out in the craft market: so he begins his stylistic, and technical, quest to create innovative and sophisticated objects.

The Venini vases are not only pieces of design, they are jewels for the home in which imperfections become perfection: the plays of color created between the transparencies of the glass, the different thicknesses and the soft, sinuous shapes, give life to unique and priceless pieces.

HANDKERCHIEF: LIGHTNESS AND SENSUALITY

Inspired by the windswept skirts of women in the 1950s, Fazzoletto takes us into a sensual and feminine world. The blown glass vase is made using the 15th-century Opalini technique, a technique that works on the color of the glass to make it milky by adding specific phosphates, or oxides, into the mixture. Each Venini Handkerchief has a unique and inimitable shape: the folds create plays of light and shadow accentuated by the full, vivid color of the vase.

The idea originated with Fulvio Bianconi, a young painter who stood out in the Venice Biennale and who, in 1948, gave birth to the Fazzoletto project. Fulvio Bianconi for the design of Fazzoletto was inspired by Cartoccio, conceived by Piero Chiesa from 1932. Unlike the latter, the vase designed by Bianconi plays on asymmetries and special forging techniques.

Glassmakers, to give the Handkerchief movement effect, use a technique called flying Hand. Through a soft, firm gesture, the soft glass paste is swirled to cause totally random glass shapes to be created. This technique speaks of metamorphosis and rebirth: a simple glass sphere is transformed into a work of art through a graceful dance in which the choreographer is the master craftsman.

As we mentioned, the vase is inspired by the women of the time but, once he saw the final form and watched the master craftsmen during the forging of the vase, Fulvio Bianconi realized that the vase looks more like a handkerchief waved and moved by the wind: hence the vase is named Hanky.

The vase today comes in three sizes and many colors to choose from:

Small: height: 13.5 cm and diameter: 13.5 cm
Medium: height: 24 cm and diameter: 20 cm
Large: height: 31 cm and diameter: 23 cm

This work of art has been in production for decades and has become a representative object of Italian craftsmanship in the 1950s, as well as part of the permanent collection of MoMa New York. A classic and contemporary Italian piece at the same time, it knows how to adapt to any type of space in which it is placed.

It is hard not to fall in love with this vase: every color has a thousand facets, every curve has new details to be discovered every day. Movement, fullness and freedom are the main features that characterize the Venini Fazzoletto vase. All you have to do is choose the color of your Fazzoletto and start discovering every detail of it, day after day.

Timeless