Cambi presents a sale dedicated to the recent history of Murano glass with the auction “Venini 1970–2020: 250 Glass Works from a Private Milanese Collection”, scheduled in Milan on 16 December 2025 at 3:00 pm.

The sale brings together an extraordinary collection spanning fifty years of Venini production, the result of a singular collecting vision able to grasp the technical, aesthetic and design transformations of the historic glassworks. The selection sets into dialogue key figures of modern and contemporary glass – from Paolo Venini to Carlo and Tobia Scarpa, from Fulvio Bianconi to Gio Ponti, from Gae Aulenti to Alessandro Mendini, up to Giorgio Vigna, James Carpenter, Ludovico, Alessandro and Laura Diaz De Santillana, Tomaso Buzzi and Tapio Wirkkala – offering a coherent overview of the evolution of the manufactory, always faithful to its identity while constantly innovating.

The collection was formed through the personal journey of a passionate Milanese collector, Mr AB, whom the department director Marco Arosio met in a completely unexpected way, thanks to a simple and poetic gesture: at every exhibition of Murano glass, the collector would leave a small bouquet of garden roses in the gallery. From this gesture a dialogue began, leading to the discovery of his collection: a surprisingly full attic of vases, plates, bowls and objects chosen with absolute rigor, often purchased among the very first examples presented at the Venini shop on Via Montenapoleone and, in many cases, accompanied by prototypes or variants never put into production. When the collector decided to move to Liguria, he expressed the wish to entrust the entire group to the auction house, thus making it possible to share with the public what had been, for fifty years, a private and meticulous pursuit.

Among the most significant testimonies to the historic roots of the manufactory is a group of four vases from the Tessuti series by Carlo Scarpa and Paolo Venini, made around 1980. Offered as Lot 6, these blown-glass works – characterized by bi-coloured canes and the traditional surface ground on the wheel – document the persistence of Scarpa’s legacy in contemporary production and are estimated at €5,000–6,000.

From the 1980s through the early 2000s emerge the results of the glassworks’ most experimental research. A notable example is Le quattro stagioni by Laura Diaz De Santillana, offered as Lot 33: a complete set of four plates made between 1983 and 2006, in which the incalmo technique and a central murrina decoration interact with a fully wheel-ground surface, achieving a balance of rigor and formal immediacy. Signatures, dates and Venini labels attest to the care with which the collection was assembled; the estimate is €3,000–4,000.

From the same period is the Bolle series, represented in Lot 27 by five bottles produced between 1989 and 2008. The refined use of incalmo, combined with chromatic variety and project coherence, makes this group one of the most representative expressions of Venini’s sensibility between the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the new millennium; the estimate is again €3,000–4,000.

The entry into the twenty-first century is marked by the visual and technical renewal brought about by the encounter between Murano tradition and the visions of international designers. Two important examples from the Kukinto series by Timo Sarpaneva, dated 2008 and 2016 and offered as Lots 162 and 164, bear witness to this openness: blown glass handkerchief vases on tall stems, defined by vertical polychrome bands that enhance the rhythm and lightness of the design, each estimated at €2,000–2,500.

The journey concludes with one of the most surprising and iconic collaborations between fashion and glass of the late twentieth and contemporary centuries. Lot 107 brings together the complete collection of seven vases designed by Gianni Versace for Venini between 1997 and 2022: Smoking, Asimmetrico, Gessato, Post Moderno, V.V.V., Frisage and Grenadine. Each piece is signed, dated and numbered with a diamond point, with original labels still present. This ensemble represents the pinnacle of the collection and is estimated at €10,000–12,000.