Viartec Murano Style Purple Spanish Glass Sculpture Bowl

Description

Here is a magnificent large 1950/60's Murano style Spanish freeform purple glass sculpture bowl. 

The origin of these sculptures have been a mystery to me for a long time. Although very Murano in style, I once had a piece from this range with a Davidsons label (British glassworks). However it is very different from their normal work, and no others have surfaced with Davidson labels, so the label was probably "added" by someone later. Then another example turned up with an "Icet" label. Icet are or were a Venezuelian factory who produced Murano style glass, so this seemed quite plausible, however, again no other examples with Icet labels have surfaced. Finally, after following a lead from Collectors Weekly, I believe I found the answer. It turns out these sculptures were made by a Spanish factory called Viartec THF. Further research online has resulted in multiple examples with labels that read "Viartec Hand Made in Spain". I also found a couple of online listings of unlabelled examples, where the seller claimed to have bough them while on holiday in Spain in the 1970's. This would explain why they are fairly common here in the UK, Spain being one of our most popular holiday destinations.

Size

Measures approx 12 inches tall by 5.5 inches in diameter at widest point.

Condition

No chips or cracks other than a couple of small nicks to the side of the base, shown in final picture, and a couple of dull patches to the edge of the base rim, where tiny chips may have been ground out, shown in pictures 7 and 8. This is actually very common with these sculptures, and therefore probably done at the factory.