Alfredo Barbini was a designer known for his sculptures rendered in his signature vetro sommerso technique, where colors or additional pieces are seamlessly introduced to the larger whole. Barbini grew up in Murano and learned the traditional techniques of glassblowing in his teens as an apprentice at the Cristallerina Franchetti and the S.A.I.A.R. Ferro Toso, and was recognized as a Maestro before he was 20 years old. He worked under famed artist Napoleone Martinuzzi in the mid-1930s, opening his own furnace called Vetreria Alfredo Barbini is 1950. Experimenting throughout his career with glass’s plasticity, he created delicately colored organic and biomorphic objects, in addition to figurative models and animals.