About Venetian Glass Art - Home of Genuine Murano and Venetian Glass Jewelry and Home Accessories

Venetian Glass Art Website, Home of fashion jewelry made with Venetian Beads, blown Murano art glass and Murano Glass Gifts,PERLAVITA Jewelry.

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About Us

Venetian Glass Art is a direct importer of Venetian Glass and Murano Glass. Working directly with the furnaces in Murano to bring the finest from the Murano Glass furnaces directly to our customers.

Designing new Venetian Glass Beads for fashion jewelry with a local Murano bead artist.

Designing new Venetian Glass Beads for fashion jewelry with a local Murano bead artist.

Ours is a story of the love of Venetian glass, a fascination with the techniques of glass blowing and, of course, a love of Italy, its people, and its culture. It all started with a trip to Venice in 1984 when Brenda purchased a Moretti glass necklace with the famous Murano beads. Many compliments and requests by friends prompted another trip and more purchases and sparked an interest in the glass. We began studying the language and our love and appreciation of the people and the culture grew. Importing the wonderful glass of Murano was a natural extension of our new lives in Italy with friends and family.

Exhibitors for many years with the International Gem and Jewelry Shows, the San Francisco International Gift Show and at various shows in the San Francisco Bay Area, we opened our first online store in 1998 on Yahoo Stores. We were pioneers in the E-commerce age! And, the rest, as they say, is history.

We remain a family owned business located in Santa Clara and Sunnyvale, CA, USA where we have been importing Venetian Glass and Murano Glass commercially since 1993.

One of our goals at Venetian Glass Art is to provide you with the most exquisite pieces of Venetian and Murano Glass available, whether it be a blown vase or a Murano Glass bead necklace. We do this by working directly with individual artists and families, many whom are second and third generation glass blowers or bead makers. We're sure you'll find the quality of our products to be unrivaled.

We only collect personal data required to process your order and your payment and maintain that information per the US laws regarding credit card transactions.

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We do not sell, rent or otherwise distribute any of your data (name, address, email address, phone number, card number, etc).

We do notify you by email when we ship your order and when out-of-stock items are available. If you do not wish to be notified or contacted via email, please email us that you do not wish to be contacted. However our system automatically generates email notifications when you order and when an item is shipped. This is our policy.

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Best Sellers

	Blown Murano Glass Ball Ornament with Bead Accents - Amethyst and Aventurina
	.925 Sterling Silver Box Chain, 16 Inches
	Blown Venetian Wine Stoppers - Small

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Venetian Glass Art is a direct importer of the finest Venetian Glass and Murano Glass working directly with the furnaces in Murano. We carry the finest in Venetian Glass Jewelry, Venetian Chandeliers, Venetian Glass Lamps, Venetian Glass Mirrors, Venetian Wine Glasses, Venetian Glass Wine Stoppers, Murano Glass, Venetian Vases, Murano Glass Vases, Murano Glass Chandeliers, Millefiori Pendants, Murano Glass Jewelry, made with Murano Beads and Venetian Beads. We specialize in Corporate Gifts, customized for your Promotion or Incentive. We have been working with the furnaces in Venice continuously since 1993 and an online store since 1998. We ship worldwide. Join our free email list to receive promotional information, incentives and news from Venice and Murano.

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Murano Glass Terms and Techniques
Avventurina (or aventurina - the Venetian spelling) a type of glass first produced around 1542 which achieved the suspension of small cristals of copper. The small particles appear like gold in the light and are used in both blown Venetian glass and particularly in Venetian beads.

D'Oro decorated with goldfoil. Furnaces use 24kt gold foil sheet applied to the glass and then fired in by reheating in the furnace. Also references to Ca'd'oro refer the the palace on the Grande Canal which originally was decorated in gold leaf. Used often in Ventian wine glasses and many Venetian beads go by this name but almost always found in Venetian Glass Chandeliers.

Gloryhole - A barrel shaped furnace heated on all sides by gas jets used for reheating pieces during the blowing process. Many furnaces in Murano use the heat from just above the pots of glass in the furnace.

Fenicio - the technique of applying ribbons of color which are then with an instrument pulled perpendicularly through the ribbons creates waves in the ribbons, today used not only in Murano glass, Venetian beads, but also can be seen in pastries!

Fermacarte - glass paperweights, the techniques developed in 1854 by Pietro Bigaglia of Murano where he encased the slices of canes (millefiori) in transparent glass. Today the tradition lives on as Murano glass paperweights are collected around the world and still made on the island of Murano.

Filigrana is a technique very complicated that begins with canes of colored glass prepared on a tray in exact intervals. The glass blower blows a bubble which he elongates to fit the length of the canes and carefully rolls the bubble over the canes. Reheating the canes to melt into the bubble the glassblower twists the bubble while blowing to give a swirl in the colored lines which results in a diamond like shape between the intersections when viewed from the side. An elegant simple design deceptive in its difficulty. Popular in Murano glass lighting and Murano Glass lamps as well as Venetian wine glasses or Murano Glass perfume bottles.

Fusion a process of melting glass to a temperature to just the heat where the pieces fuse together but do not run to produce flat pieces. The glass is arranged while cold, often from sheets of glass or millefiori (small slices of canes) and set into kilns. It requires a period to reach the fusion point and a slow cool down to prevent the junctions of the glasses from cracking. Fusion is used in our flat Venetian Glass pendants, or in our Murano glass picture frames or in certain Murano glass paperweights.

Goto a glass or cup made by each Murano glass maestro for drinking in the furnace, not too tall, stable for sitting on the bench and personalized to be recognizable - and often a bit of a contest and very whimscal.

Lume or lampwork is the tecnhique of working the glass in front of a torch (lumè). Working with the glass canes, lampworkers create miniature animals, figurines, Murano glass candy (caramelle) and best known of course, Murano glass beads.

Maestro - the senior member of a Murano glass blowing team, becoming a Maestro (or literally teacher) requires years of experience and the ability to direct without words the apprentices (serventi) who aid the Maestro in creating the glass masterpieces. There are 4 tipes of Maestro. Maestro of spechi (mirrors), Maestro of supiadi (blown items such as Venetian vases, Venetian drinking glasses, etc), Maestro of cana (making of the canes used so many ways, and Maestro of smalti e rubini (mosiac - like the Salviati firm)
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Millefiori - means thousand flowers in Italian and refers to the slices of Murrina used in producing the mosaic like Venetian vases, pendants and Venetian beads.

Murrìna is the individual slice of a cane whose cross section reveals multiple layers of colors and shapes. These are made in the furnaces of Murano by layering colors of glass, using forms to create the shape, adding layers of color until a large ball is formed. Attaching a pontelo to the other side the two glass blowers walk away from each other and as they do so, the shapes miniaturize preserving their original form. The canes are chopped into small pieces and used in the decorations of a sundry of Murano glass objects, vases, bowls, pendants.

Pontèlo - punti in English is the rod used by the Murano glass blowers to transfer the blown piece from the blow pipe or for sculptured pieces, the rod used to gather the glass and work the item.

Sabbiata - a matte finish to the Venetian glass which is done by sandblasting (sabbia is sand in italian) or by acid etch of the glass. Often used in decorations by masking with tapes the part to remain glossy and used also in Murano glass beadmaking.

Sommerso - the technique where successive layers of color or gold foil and clear glass are applied over a base color. This technique is also used often in Venetian and Murano beadmakers and they often use aventurina as a decoration.

Zanfirico - similar to filigrana, but the color inside the canes is twisted appearing like a twisted ribbon of color, the canes are laid down following the filigrana method for applying to the bubble and blowing. Typical uses are in the Venetian glass lighting, wine glasses, vases, and perfume bottles.