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Venice

Art & Craft shopping in Venice

  1. A

    El Fero Novo

    At his workshop and highly original enterprise, Primo Bollani churns out all sorts of fanciful sculptures in iron, from dreamlike monuments such as bridges and towers to odd-looking gondolas.

    reviewed

  2. Bochaleri in Campo

    Held around the last weekend of April on Campo Bandiera e Moro, this pottery market attracts ceramicists with their variegated handmade plates, pots, jewellery, jars and more from all over the Veneto.

    reviewed

  3. B

    Martinuzzi

    Pick up high-class doilies at one of the city's traditional purveyors of fine Burano lace -recognised world-wide as classic Venice. This little store is draped in luxurious lace and also festooned with Murano glass.

    reviewed

  4. C

    Arca

    The designs in this eye-catching shop are powerful and, for some, the colours are possibly a little strong. Teresa della Valentina paints her tiles and other ceramic objects in bold, bright, deep colours, with reds dominant.

    reviewed

  5. D

    Studio In Venice

    Alon Baker runs this Venice branch of the original store in Old Jaffa, Israel. It produces all sorts of bright handmade artwork, from parts of the Torah to imaginative paintings, all taking their inspiration from Jewish tradition.

    reviewed

  6. E

    Bugno Art Gallery

    This gallery has some works by contemporary artists on permanent display, although money is the object. While you might not be able to afford a Miró or De Chirico, there's plenty of other material for the modern-art collector.

    reviewed

  7. F

    Galleria Ferruzzi

    Roberto Ferruzzi's images of Venice are an engaging, almost naive version of what we see. With fat brushstrokes and primary colours, the artist creates a kind of children's gingerbread Venice. On sale are screen prints, paintings and postcards.

    reviewed

  8. G

    Livio de Marchi

    Featuring wooden sculptures of underpants, socks and shirts, this shop is rather strange but somewhat endearing all the same. Just how you might incorporate a fine carving of an unironed shirt into your living room's décor is another question.

    reviewed

  9. H

    Berengo

    Here is a purveyor of glass that has long abandoned any pretence of functionality in its products. This is glass for art's sake and the company's master glass-makers work to designs by contemporary artists, such as Turin-born Riccardo Licata, long a lagoon resident.

    reviewed

  10. I

    Il Papiro

    A bright, spacious stationer's, the Florentine chain store Il Papiro (with three branches in Venice) doesn't pretend to compete with the handful of traditional marbled-paper shops around town. But it does offer everything from elegant envelopes to letter openers and quills.

    reviewed

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  12. J

    L'arlecchino

    The folks at L'Arlecchino claim the masks are made only with papier-mâché to their own designs. To prove it you can inspect the workshop. The quality of masks, which hang at all levels in this cramped shop and together form what could be the outlandish spectators in a tightly packed dream-world theatre, is unquestionable.

    reviewed

  13. K

    Marco Polo

    One of the handful of larger reliable glass merchants in Murano, Marco Polo offers you the opportunity to see the masters at work, a large display of traditional glassware, the possibility of having objects tailor-made and sent to your country and, upstairs, a quasimuseum of contemporary art in glass by local master Andres Pagnes and international names such as Tony Cragg and Costas Varotsos.

    reviewed