goblet

Stylistically, this elegant goblet is among the most recognizable of all Renaissance Venetian glasses. The pure shape beautifully displays the high quality of the glass and the skillful workmanship that afforded Muranese glass its unsurpassed reputation. Seventeenth-century pictorial representations of this and similar glasses and the multitude of surviving examples suggest that goblets of this design, constructed with a hollow stem and a flaring bowl, were produced in considerable numbers for both the local aristocracy and a prosperous merchant community, as well as for export. The Roman draftsman Giovanni Maggi (1566– 1618) illustrated a number of such vessels in his Bichierografia (1604). He produced this extensive catalog for Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte (1549–1627), a Venetian-born art collector and protégé of Ferdinando de’ Medici (1549–1609), grand duke of Tuscany. They were members of a circle of connoisseurs concerned with the art of glassmaking.