Barovier & Toso - Ercole Barovier - Ashtray - Zebrati serie - Crystal, Gold

Offered is an ashtray from the Zebrati series by Barovier & Toso, designed by Ercole Barovier.

The Zebrati pattern:
The 'circles' are glass color lines (in this case red) wound around the glass core in a tight spiral from bottom to top. Because the ashtray is blown round and thick-walled, these lines appear as concentric circles when viewed from above.

The gold (Avventurina):
The gold is pure gold leaf that has melted into the molten glass during blowing. It is often combined with the bullicante technique (subtle, controlled air bubbles in the glass that make the gold dust glisten even more).

The master glassblowers of Barovier used for the Zebrati series a solid layer of clear crystal glass to melt around the internal decoration (the red glass threads and the 24-karat gold dust).
This created a three-dimensional depth effect.
It also gave the object its distinctive, solid weight of about 1 pound. Much heavier than an average glass ashtray of this size.
Usually they were fitted with a paper sticker and not signed in the glass.

Barovier & Toso is a historic Italian glassworks located on the island of Murano near Venice. The company was founded as early as 1295 and is among the oldest still-active (family) businesses in the world. It is an artisanal and artistic glassblowing workshop. Each object—primarily exclusive, luxury design lighting and chandeliers—continues to be fully mouth-blown and hand-crafted by master glassblowers in their own ovens in Murano.

View the photos carefully, they are part of the description.

The lot will be shipped insured.