Name of Object:

Glass vessel (cista) with fenicio ('Phoenician') decoration

Name in original language:

Cista con decoro fenicio

Location:

Rome, Italy

Holding Institution:

Museo Artistico Industriale, National Gallery of Ancient Art in Palazzo Barberini

 About MIBACT | Collection of former Museum of Industrial Art (M.A.I.), Rome

Holding Institution (original language):

Museo Artistico Industriale presso la Galleria nazionale d’arte antica in Palazzo Barberini

Date of Object:

Second half of the 19th century (before 1881)

Author:

Murano manufacture

Inventory Number:

Inv. 3045

Material(s) / Technique(s):

Glass

Description:

The Museum of Industrial Arts (M.A.I.) was established in 1872 in Rome as a collection of manufacts (glasses, majolica, sculptures, materials, photographs, metals, casts and other) from antiquity to 19th century, and as a training school for specialising artisans, as part of the process of revaluation of the so-called "minor arts". Venetian glass has a long history, inherited from the Roman, Byzantine and Islamic tradition in the Middle Ages. The massive emigrations of Murano's glass workers to Spain during the 1600s spurred the building of many kilns that fused formal training with the strong local glass tradition. The cista is part of a series of objects made in Murano in the second half of the 19th century, mainly by the Murano Venetian Glass Society, and inspired to Spanish models called "Façon de Venise", showing a Phoenician decoration. The cista, or vessel, has a lid with a pinnacle in aquamarine glass.

Type of Object

Cista; Murano glass vessel

Citation of this web page:

Marina Minozzi "Glass vessel (cista) with fenicio ('Phoenician') decoration" in "Sharing History", Museum With No Frontiers, 2026.
https://sharinghistory.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;AWE;it;224;en

Prepared by: Marina Minozzi
Copyedited by: Anne Dowell

MWNF Working Number: IT2 082