(Murano 1878–1947)
Le mille e una notte, 1914, signed with the initials V.Z, tempera on wood, 58 x 65 cm, framed

Photo certificate issued by Giovanni Mariacher, Venice, 14 September 1971

Provenance:
Anacleto Frezzati Collection, Venice
European Private Collection (acquired from the above in the 1970s)

Literature:
A. Artale, La perfetta fusione fra pittura e arti applicate in ‚Le Mille e una notte‘ di Vittorio Zecchin, in Arte Documento, Rivista e Collezione di Storia e tutela dei Beni Culturali, no. 34, Venice 2017

“The beautiful murrine, full of so many beautiful colours, like my lagoon, my sea, my sky, like San Marco, like the fires of our furnaces. What joy in the ability to transform glass into many precious jewels, more beautiful than those of the jewellers, more beautiful than the eyes of Oriental women.”
Vittorio Zecchin

The ‘Thousand and One Nights’ cycle was executed by the artist on commission from the owners of the Terminus Hotel of the Lido di Venezia. The 1914 cycle is one of the most important works by Vittorio Zecchin. This versatile artist is, however, best known for his work in the field of applied arts, as opposed to painting, due to the relatively lower number of paintings he completed. The Terminus Hotel no longer exists; it was bombed during the Second World War, but the paintings it contained were rescued. Some are preserved at Ca’Pesaro, the Venetian museum of modern art.
Influenced by the vivid polychromy of Gustav Klimt and the essential linearity of the works of Jan Toorop, Zecchin was able to create a personal visual language based on the exuberant vivacity of colour and on the quality of execution which is particularly evident in the minute polychrome details, in which Zecchin was able to instil the typical Muranese technique of the ‘murrina’.
The work can be interpreted as a large mosaic of painted murrine.