Dale Chihuly Unique 1992 Buttercup Yellow Persian with Blood Red Lip Wrap Hand Blown Glass Art

Artist: Dale Chihuly
Title: Buttercup Yellow Persian with Blood Red Lip Wrap
Size: 11" x 9" x 9"
Year: 1992
Documentation: Includes Gallery Certificate of Authenticity

Dale Chihuly's Buttercup Yellow Persian with Red Lip Wrap is the Quintessential Persian - a flowerlike form resting on a ball foot with gently fluted edges and fine lines that spiral precariously around the body.

The first Chihuly Persians were made in 1986. An eccentric collection of brightly colored and unusually shaped objects - primarily small bottles and vessels - the earliest Persians looked "archaeological" to Chihuly, like excavated ancient treasures. Chihuly sensed that these objects represented a formal direction in his art that was experimental, new, and exotic. Exhibited for the first time in Chihuly’s 1986 solo exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs of the Palais du Louvre in Paris, the Persians were described in the exhibition catalogue as "new possibilities from the blowpipe."2 At the time of the Louvre show, the series was still untitled.

"In the beginning, the Persians had to do with the contrast between two colors ... between open and closed forms ... and the intensity of the body wraps", Chihuly has recalled. ("Body wrap" is Chihuly’s term for the stripe of color applied to the body of a piece.) Soon, the early Persians’ color-saturated, contrasting body wraps were seen by the artist as alternately "Persian," "Byzantine", and "minaret-like", almost "Persian and Roman too", More interested in the East than the West, Chihuly liked the sound of the word "Persian," the associations it inspired, and the series found a name.

This version of the Buttercup Yellow Persian with Red Lip Wrap is not part of the well-known buttercup Portalnd Press edition. It is a unique work from 1992 that differs from the edition work due to the orange hued ball foot. Purchase includes a gallery certificate of authenticity from Modern Artifact.

About Dale Chihuly

One of the most famous contemporary glass artists in the world, Dale Chihuly is best known for his monumental sculptures and installations. He is the name behind the spectacular ceiling at the Bellagio’s flower garden in Las Vegas and the creator of the Rotunda Chandelier at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Glass works of Dale Chihuly are considered some of the most desired collectibles between the decorative arts devotees today. Despite his initial indifference towards education, Chihuly has spent a lot of time in school, obtaining both scientific and artistic degree in sculpture from prestigious graduate schools.

He displayed a proclivity for interior design and craft early on, but his true passion was always in the glass. He was a Fulbright Fellow in the late 1960s and an apprentice at the Venini Glass Factory in Venice. Mastering the art of Murano glasswork, he continued the experiments with glassblowing and thus became one of the people who brought the ancient art of glassblowing back into the spotlight on an international scale.

Monumental and small-scale artwork of Dale Chihuly is present in over 200 most renowned decorative art collections today, while the artist holds twelve honorary doctorates!

The most illustrious series in his work are Cylinders and Baskets he created in the 1970s; Macchia, Venetians, and Persians from the 1980's, Niijima Floats and Chandeliers created in the 1990s; and a more recent one, Fiori from the 2000's.

For over 30 years, Dale Chihuly has been acting as an artistic director of his team of craftsmen, since he was incapacitated in two accidents, which left him blind in one eye and incapable of holding the blowing tube. This change allowed him to see the possibilities of glass work on a broader scale, while still maintaining his recognizable style.