Vase ‘Oriente’ Series Dino Martens for Aureliano Toso. Murano, 1952-1961

Murano glass vase designed by artist Dino Martens (Venice, 1894-1970), painter and designer for Vetri Decorativi Aureliano Toso, a historic Murano glassworks founded in 1938 of which Martens himself became artistic director the following year, commitment that he kept till 1963. He contributed to the creation of products and techniques with remarkable innovative scope. The ‘Oriente’ series, one of them and of which our vase, originated from the first experiments in the late 1940s, but was officially presented in 1952 at the XXVIth Venice Biennale, with great success.
Characterised by its polychrome and pictorial decoration, which suits well to the typical taste of the 1950s with colourful decorative glass. It was made with combinations predetermined by Martens, who was present each time at every process. On a practical-technical level, ‘Oriente’ glass are consisting of a surface within which glass powder, pieces of coloured glass and a series of short zanfiric reeds and, in most cases, the typical star-shaped glass fragments made from black or white rods: a series of further processing fixed the resulting decoration in the glass wall. Further processing fixed the resulting decoration in the glass wall. New shapes were continously introduced until the last one, in 1961.