✨CONNOISSEUR’S CHOICE ✨

THE TURN OF THE TIDE

🐟💚MURANO Large 15.5” Optic Green LEAPING FISH Glass Sculpture Barbini Style 2.9kg💚🐟

A magnificent Murano art glass fish, caught in a moment of movement: head dipping towards the water, clear fins spread and a great forked tail sweeping high into the air. At 15½ inches tall and weighing 2.9 kg, this is a substantial sculpture with the poise to command a room.

The fish’s body carries a shifting optic green tone, deepening to smoky olive along its back and becoming luminous where the light passes through. Its transparent fins, individually formed eyes and pointed snout give definition to the sleek shape. Beneath it, a sculpted glass support opens into a broad, rippling base—a beautiful suggestion of the water from which the fish has risen. The sculptural base has a polished, shallowly concave underside, finished with a fine chamfered edge.

Turn the sculpture or change the light and its character changes with it. Dark green gathers through the body; pale golden reflections appear in the thicker glass; the clear fins seem almost to vanish before catching the light again. It has all the pleasure of a piece made to be seen in the round.

RESEARCH NOTES:

A fish of this closely matching design and approximately the same height is pictured in Carter’s Price Guide to Antiques, catalogued as a Salviati Murano glass fish by Alfredo Barbini. This sculpture has no surviving label or signature. The published example provides a valuable design comparison, but its maker attribution cannot be confirmed for this individual piece.

MEASUREMENTS:

Height: approximately 15½ inches

Length: approximately 9 inches

Width: approximately 5 inches

Weight: approximately 2.9 kg

CONDITION:

No signature or label. The photographs show the actual sculpture and form part of its description. A small irregularity to the inner edge of one tail fin, shown in the close-up photograph; it appears consistent with the glass-forming process.

A splendid piece of glass theatre: one bold sweep of green, a flash of clear fins, and the sea held still for a moment. 🐟✨