A rare and unusual façon de Venise zoomorphic wine glass, 17th century

Modelled as a bizarre bird-like beast or chimera, the base of the tall flared octagonal trumpet bowl with four graduated bulbous constrictions forming the head and body of the animal, applied with an open beak, pincered ears, and three raspberry prunts to the body, its arms and legs formed from twisted rods in clear glass, its eyes and eyebrows trailed in turquoise, pecking at a deep turquoise-blue fruit held in its hands, supported on a ribbed hollow baluster stem set between collars, over a plain conical foot, 27cm high

Provenance
Sotheby's sale, 25 November 1986, lot 174
Private British Collection

A related animalistic glass is illustrated by Rainer Ruckert, Die Glassammlung des Bayersischen Nationalmuseums München, vol.1 (1982), no.91. See also the goblet modelled as an owl in the British Museum (inv. no.S.461), illustrated by Hugh Tait, The Golden Age of Venetian Glass (1979), pp.62-3, no.77. A related vessel identified as a lamp in the Rosenborg Castle glass collection with wings notched in a manner similar to the ears of the beast in the present lot is illustrated by Gudmund Boesen, Venetianske Glas på Rosenborg (1960), no.20. Another in the British Museum (inv. no.S.525) with a comparable open beak is illustrated and discussed by Hugh Tait, The Golden Age of Venetian Glass (1979), p.115, no.193.