The M.V.M. Cappellin Glassworks

Stimulated by the passion and enthusiasm of its founder, who with his strong personality directed production, from the end of 1926 the glassworks was also to benefit from the contribution of the young Venetian architect, Carlo Scarpa (1906-1978). Coming into contact with the M.V.M. in 1925 on the occasion of the restoration of the Palazzo Da Mula, the headquarters of the company, for which he supervised the works, Scarpa began his association initially as draughtsman but, very quickly, also as a designer of glass pieces up to 1931. In January of 1932 the company closed due to bankruptcy, perhaps because of somewhat imprudent management, aggravated by the effects of the economic crash of 1929. This volume reconstructs the activity of the M.V.M. Cappellin e C. company in the period which saw the presence at the furnace of the young architect, after the departure of Vittorio Zecchin, artistic director from 1925 to 1926. The reconstruction of the history of the glassworks is the result of long, demanding and wide-ranging research in public and private archives as, following the bankruptcy of the company, its archives were progressively split up and dispersed.
The production of the M.V.M. Cappellin e C. company is illustrated with about five hundred works (vases, figurines, plants, animals, lighting, stained glass etc.) documenting the extraordinary achievement of these years: from transparent, geometrically accentuated glass pieces to the exquisite series of opaque pieces (golden lattimo, with decoro fenicio, pasta vitrea etc.) characterised often by evocative colours. Invaluable and original documentary material, among which working and draft drawings and period photographs, completes the volume, giving an accurate account of the activity of the M.V.M., which, despite its short life contributed to no small extent to revolutionising Murano glasswork in the twentieth century.
 
Venice, Island of San Giorgio Maggiore
10 September 2018 – 6 January 2019