Murano Glass

February 13, 2020 James Kelly

If you think porcelain, you think Delft or Limoges and if you think fashion, you think of Paris or Milan. However, when you think of glass, there is only one option – Venice. Renowned throughout the world, Venice is the home to glass and has been since the 8th Century.
One can be even more specific, as there is Venetian glass and Murano glass. Murano is a small island off the Venetian coast and became home to the majority of Venice’s glassmakers at the end of the 11th century. The reason for the creation of a virtual enclave was a very simple and practical one. Murano had already been home to a number of glassmakers whose unique methods led to the specific Murano glass. However, there were too many fires in Venice and the results were devastating. Murano was a consequently more logical location for all the furnaces required to make glass, and in 1291 all Venetian glassmakers were obliged to move to Murano.
Glass, of course, is not just for glazing and drinking vessels. Glass forms a great part of the character of many a home, and this will predominantly come from interior lighting, an aspect of interior design so often ignored by all but the professionals. Glass is used for everything from the most magnificent chandeliers, to the very light bulbs used in conjunction with them, and everything else in between.

So, if you think of Venice for glass, it shouldn’t be a giant leap of the imagination to also think Venice for the home of quality light fixtures, though that description does a disservice to the time, effort and skill, as well as expertise, to create certain items which are little short of works of art.

One company which relies on a rich heritage of glass making, yet which is relatively new to the market, is Voltolina. Steeped in generations of history in the glass industry, the two Voltolina brothers decided, some thirty years ago, to diversify and work more with lighting which involved cut glass – and today their experience in the industry is as good as it gets. Two highly skilled designers – Alessandro Lenarda and Brian Rasmussen - lie at the creative heart of the business and are responsible for the production of some quite outstanding and totally unique Murano Glass Chandeliers which do nothing other than exemplify the beauty and depth of culture that comes with Venetian glass, and which you just can’t find elsewhere.

Their lights are both a spectacle and spectacular, but in true Venetian tradition, hand blown glass lies side by side with cut glass to offer the best of both worlds. As a result, Voltolina have become one of the principle names in Venetian glass lighting and whose style and elegance is virtually unsurpassed. However, that is not the only reason their lights have become so sought after, as they also recognised the intrinsic flaw with all chandelier lighting fixtures – cleaning. Yes, for as long as chandeliers have existed, there has almost been a side industry for their cleaning. However Voltolina have managed to patent their own construction method for chandeliers which is both safer in terms of avoiding contact with elements directly connected to an electrical source, but which also makes for easy dismantling, cleaning and reassembly. So with a Voltolina chandelier, the Voltolina brothers have managed to remove one of the main reasons why you may have avoided buying such a beautiful statement piece for your home.