It is by the Italian painter/glass artist Dino Martens (1894-1970), the former artistic director of Aureliano Toso, the famous Venetian glassworks where he combined traditional Muranese techniques with daring asymmetric shapes and designs marked by their obvious difficulty of execution.
This jug was part of his so-called Oriente range - the result of many experiments in which Martens strived to fuse the borders between painting and blown glass. The technique (exhibited for the first time at the 1952 Biennale) was achieved by rolling a clear cylinder of glass over colourful, flat patterns comprising ground glass and aventurine, glass canes and latticino glass squares.
As Sworders' director Guy Schooling observed, Martens glass is more usually the preserve of sales in Continental Europe and coastal America. "Very few of them have been offered for sale in this country. In fact, we could find only three pieces that have ever sold in the UK, so we were not certain how it would be received."
They weren't disappointed when the jug was entered into a specialist sale of decorative arts on September 4 with an estimate of £300-500. Bidding started at £700, but with interest on the phone and via the internet, it finally sold online to Germany for £5800.
The buyer's premium was 20%.
