Pauly & C. - Compagnia Venezia Murano

Pauly & C. – Compagnia Venezia Murano is a Venetian company that produces glass art, most notably Roman murrine, mosaics and chandeliers.

The company was formed in 1919 by a merger of Pauly & C (founded 1902) and the Compagnia di Venezia e Murano (founded 1866). It has since expanded in 1932 with the acquisition of MVM Cappellin and in 1990 by the addition of the drawings and back catalogues of Toso Vetri d’Arte. The company maintains retail showrooms as well as exhibiting antiques.

Compagnia di Venezia e Murano began as Salviati &C. in London in 1866 under the direction of Vicenza attorney Antonio Salviati and with the backing of two British men: archaeologist Austen Henry Layard and antiquarian Sir William Drake. The company was dedicated to using ancient techniques and utilized master glassblowers in its efforts to do so. It called in specialists from other fields like goldsmithing and engraving to ensure authenticity and employed artist Giuseppe Devers to teach the techniques of enamelling and heat-applied glass gilding to company artisans. Archaeologist Layard was particularly interested in the mosaic glass techniques of Roman and pre-Roman artists, and he spent years personally overseeing the work of the company's technicians and glassblowers in attempting to revive those techniques. In 1872, the company was successful, managing to replicate the type of glass commonly known as "murrina" (plural, "murrine").

The company was renamed Venice and Murano Glass and Mosaic Company Limited in 1872, and, in 1877, Layard purchased Salviati's interest so that Salviati could pursue other interests. The company quickly earned a reputation for quality original glass art and reproductions as well as its many mural mosaics in Great Britain and elsewhere in Europe. In 1878, the murrine produced by Compagnia di Venezia e Murano was included in its exhibit at the International Exhibition in Paris, which was the chief attraction in Italian glass. In its observations of the display, the United States Commission to the Paris exposition commented not only on "Roman murrhine glass", but also particularly on the mural glass mosaics, the "perfection of which" had "engaged the earnest attention of the company." Mosaics produced by the company during the time period are still in existence in diverse areas such as Gonville and Caius College Chapel in Cambridge; St Paul's Within the Walls in Rome, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Westminster Cathedral in London, Old South Church in Boston the Chamberlain Memorial in Birmingham, Palazzo Barbarigo and the Senate House rooms in the United States. The last specimen, a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, was produced and donated in 1866.

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