By Keeva Stratton
Bombay Sapphire was host to an exclusive charity auction at the prestigious Palazzo Colonna in Rome last month. The auction featured 19 unique Bombay Sapphire inspired martini cocktail glasses, including the magnificent ‘Chalice’ martini cocktail glass, donated by Australian glass artist, Peter Crisp. The glass sold for an incredible 13,000 Euros, which will go to both Australian and Italian cancer research charities.
Rescu. spoke with Peter Crisp, the artist behind the feature glass, about his passion and involvement in this incredible event. Having now worked in glass for 30 years, Peter recalls his initial attraction to the spontaneity of the material, ‘just add heat and it changes quickly’.
When asked about his creative process he explained, ‘First and foremost you have to think of the reason why you are creating the design or object. Above all you try to be ‘true’ to yourself and create something original that will appeal to everyone involved. Every piece and design starts as a work drawing – first, pencil on paper, then black ink, works.’ But even for this master of glass it is not always a smooth process, ‘Sometimes ideas are easy, sometimes ideas need to evolve. If they need to evolve then there can be an argument of ideas in one’s head space!’
In 1999, when the editor of Vogue Entertaining, Sue Fairlie-Cunninghame, asked Peter to design a martini glass, he started work on two glasses. He described: ‘one was very organic, shell-like in green and gold (being Australia’s colours); the other glass is what was seen and sold in Rome.’ Inspired and influenced by the distinctive architecture of the Eifel Tower, Empire State building and other structures that were distinctive of the 1920s, the decade when martini glasses were first popularised, the design for the ‘Chalice’ was formed.
To create the glass Peter fused sapphires to the surface, which proved to be quite the challenge – ‘never before has any precious stone ever been fused into the surface of glass,’ he quipped, ‘so it has taken 30 years to discover the process to do this.’ And he did so at an incredible scale in order to create a Bombay Sapphire signature feel – ‘226 light blue sapphires from Sri Lanka were secured, to match the colour of the Bombay Sapphire glass bottle’. The glass took two weeks and 9 kiln firings to complete.
The hard work paid off as Peter was rewarded with a generous bid at the auction, ‘I was delighted by the two bid amounts. My original prototype went for 1600 Euros and my jewel encrusted glass went for 13,000 Euros, both purchased by the same person in Rome.’ But Peter knew the unique attraction of the piece as ‘the world’s first drinking vessel ever in the history of glass making with fused precious stones.’
For Peter, his experience with cancer had been a deeply sad one. ‘I sat for two weeks with my 16 year old god daughter in January this year and watched her die.’ Hopefully his contribution will help reduce the suffering of others. ‘Cancer research is important to me. Everyone is affected in some way by this dreadful disease’, he said.
The ‘Chalice’ was one of 19 original glasses successfully auctioned on the night. Funds raised by the auction were donated to cancer research charities including the Cure For Life Foundation in Australia, which supports the research and treatment of brain tumours and the IARC (Italian Association for Cancer Research) in Italy.
