Object details
Object number
C11s21
Creator(s)
Venice & Murano Glass & Mosaic Co. Ltd
(Venice, founded 1866)
Title
Goblet of the Campanile
Date
about 1903
Medium
Glass with enamel paint
Dimensions
14 cm (5 1/2 in.)
Provenance
Purchased by Mary Curtis in Venice at the celebration of the restoration of the Campanile, 1912.
Gift from Mary Curtis to Isabella Stewart Gardner, probably in 1912.
Commentary
Painted enameled symbols of Venice like Saint Mark’s lion and dolphins decorate this Venetian glass cup. It is a replica of one that survived the 1902 collapse of the Campanile—one of Venice’s most recognizable buildings in Saint Mark’s Square. Over the next ten years, the city rebuilt the bell tower exactly as it was. In 1912, Venetian glass companies sold replicas of the “Campanile Cup” to commemorate its inauguration.
Isabella’s friend Mary Curtis attended the celebrations and gave Isabella one of the copied cups as a memento. Isabella kept the cup in her bedroom and later displayed it in the Macknight Room, which she used as a sitting room towards the end of her life. It surely gave her great pleasure to be reminded of the resilience of her favorite city—Venice.
Bibliography
Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston, 1935), p. 65. (as modern Venetian)
Rosella Mamoli Zorzi."'Foresti' In Venice in the Second Half of the 19th Century: Their Passion for Paintings, Brocades, and Glass." Atti dell' Instituto Veneto di Scienze, lettre ed arti (Venice, 2016), p. 9.
Elizabeth Reluga, "The Story Behind Isabella's Venetian Campanile Cup," Inside the Collection (blog), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 19 April 2022, https://www.gardnermuseum.org/blog/story-behind-isabellas-venetian-campanile-cup
Gallery
Macknight Room
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