“Spirit fruit” in cobalt and opal blue handblown filigree glass (2015) by Jeremy Maxwell Wintrebert.
If you are strolling down rue de Lille in Paris anytime soon, don’t miss the exhibition of spectacular contemporary glasswork by Jeremy Maxwell Winterbert at Galerie Carole Decombe. The ‘Spirit Fruit’ (2015) vases in filigree glasswork are exquisite and possess an ethereal, and at the same time dynamic quality which we found very moving.
Filigree glass is the term used to describe glass with threads incorporated into a clear body. The technique was introduced in 1527 by Venetian glass-blowers on Murano. Right through into the eighteenth century, Murano glass-blowers continued to produce filigree glass of unrivaled excellence. Inspired by examples from the past, glass-blowers revived the technique in the mid-nineteenth century, when they started to use coloured threads as well as white ones. In the second half of the twentieth century, there was another resurgence of the technique.
The production of filigree glass involves a highly sophisticated technique. First of all, thin canes of opaque white glass are produced and several of these are then used together to make spiralling threads. A wide variety of twists and patterns is possible and only then can the glass-blower begin to make the object itself by combining many different canes.
Also very beautiful are the filigree glass ‘Spirit Void’ (2015), above, and ‘Void’ (2014) vases ((below) with removable inner containers for the water and flowers.
Galerie Carole Decombe, 30, rue de Lille – 75007 Paris.
Images courtesy of Galerie Carole Decombe.
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