When my daughter and I toured Italy the highlight of our trip was visiting the glass blowing factory in Venice. My daughter was captivated by the glass blower himself, who she was sure was a direct descendant of some Roman God. I of course was thinking how great it was to purchase Venetian glass chandeliers directly from the factory at prices that seemed incredibly low. I invested in several hand blown chandeliers and accessory pieces. Wow! By the time we paid shipping overseas, dollar exchange value, and duties, these turned out to be not such a bargain.
Cristian Radice, representing La Murrina USA, inc.
Cristian Radice, representing La Murrina from Murano, Italy brought exciting news from the world of hand blown glass in his presentation today. This line of exquisite hand blown chandeliers, sconces, and lamps is now being represented in the United States. That means we designers can have these lovely products shipped to us from a local receiver rather than directly from Italy, saving us lots of nightmares.
Hand blown glass electroplated with Rose Gold.
Options abound in this exciting line with new techniques unique to La Murrina such as the new electroplated metallic finishes applied to glass…any metal, including rose gold which creates a luminous sheer and transparent color of exceptional luster.
Opalescent glass made with arsenic has been banned because of the danger to glass blowers of handling the arsenic. No new replacement has yet been found.
Glass rose vase for chandelier with silver electroplated finish. Looks just like solid fine silver.
Sample of opalescent glass made with arsenic.
We also learned that the beautiful opalescent glass we love so much is soon to be unavailable if the chemists do not come up with a substitute for the arsenic which has here to fore given the glass that lovely pearlescent quality. The search is on for some other chemical that will impart the same milky translucence to the glass while being non-toxic to the glass blower. We are definitely interested in protecting those Italian glass blowers!
La Murrina - Sirio S/R
La Murrina - Sirio A
La Murrina - Regolo S/R
New hand blown designs can be done using many different colors and combinations of colors of glass, and all have LED lighting and are all UL approved. These are a few of the new designs that we love.