Craft guide
ORBISCRAFT & ATELIERS IN VENICE5 stores · curated ORBIS register
Venice
Arzanàrt hand-makes Venetian marbled paper in its Venice workshop, floating oil paints on water and combing them into veined patterns, a technique first used in Venice in 1600. The studio's work is credited to Federico for marbled paper and Isabella for paper creations.
Best for Hand-marbled venetian paper
Murano / Venice / Online
Murano glass dynasty since 1295 — handcrafted blown-glass chandeliers and lighting by master artisans using traditional techniques.
Best for Murano chandeliers and heritage glass.
Barovier & Toso, founded in 1295, is one of the world's oldest family businesses and a master of lighting design. The company is a producer of Venetian glass and chandeliers based in Murano, Italy, well known for its exquisite Murano glassware handcrafted using traditional techniques passed down through generations of glassmakers. The Barovier dynasty began in 1295 when Jacobello Barovier, mentioned in historical documents as a master glassblower, began pinching, cutting, blowing, and twisting molten mixtures of sand and minerals into works of art. The creations of Barovier & Toso are one-of-a-kind works in Venetian mouth-blown crystal, handcrafted by master artisans in Murano who serve as custodians of an age-old tradition passed down across generations. Specialties include crystalline glass, mother-of-pearl glass, and gold-free cornelian red glass. The company offers a product line called 'Venezia 1295,' a chandelier collection referencing the foundational year of the Barovier family. The brand continues to produce luxury lighting and decorative glass objects using traditional techniques, maintaining the highest standards of Venetian glassmaking.
Venice / Online
Ca' Macana has made papier-mache carnival masks in Venice since 1984 from its workshop at Dorsoduro 3215. Each mask is formed by hand from a gesso mould and finished with fabrics and feathers, or with gold or silver leaf. Classic bauta and moretta forms follow paintings by Pietro Longhi and Francesco Guardi. Its masks appeared in Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, and the workshop runs mask-making courses.
Best for True Venetian carnival masks.
Ca' Macana has made papier-mache masks in Venice since 1984, working from a workshop at Dorsoduro 3215. Every mask is formed by hand from a gesso mould, so each one carries the hand of the artisan who made it. The decoration draws on fabrics and feathers, Swarovski crystals and gold or silver leaf. Classic Venetian forms such as the bauta and the moretta are reproduced from paintings by Pietro Longhi and Francesco Guardi. Drawings by Giovanni Grevembroch supply further models. The workshop holds a full set of Commedia dell'Arte characters from the harlequin to the colombina. Contemporary designs are made with the same techniques. The masks have appeared in Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut and in Fifty Shades of Grey. They have also dressed productions at the Vienna Opera and fashion photography for Vogue Japan. Alongside the shop the workshop teaches. Decoration courses and a mask-making course are open to visitors, along with family workshops. Mini-lectures cover the history of the bauta and the plague doctor mask, and workshop visits are arranged for tour groups and company outings. The site also publishes a guide to buying masks in Venice. It warns that industrial imitations have crowded out authentic pieces since the 1980s and explains how to tell a handmade Venetian mask from a copy.
Burano / Venice / Online
Family lace and linen house in a 1700s building on Piazza Galuppi, Burano, where four generations have worked Burano lace. A family museum upstairs keeps 18th century wedding garments and antique lace. Beyond lace it makes bespoke home linen for residences and hotels, and it also furnishes yachts and private jets. Three boutiques: the Burano flagship and workshop, one inside the Belmond Hotel Cipriani in Venice and one in Los Angeles.
Best for Burano lace and bespoke bed and table linen made on the island
Emilia Burano is a family lace and linen house on Piazza Galuppi on the island of Burano, in the Venice lagoon. The boutique and workshop occupy a traditional Burano building from the 1700s, which the house calls the Factory of Emilia. For four generations the family has worked with Burano lace, and the master crafters inside the store pass their lace making methods from mother to daughter. One flight up, a family museum holds 18th century wedding garments and antique pieces of lace that trace the family history. The house remains a family owned business and no longer confines its work to lace alone. It also produces bespoke home linen for private residences and hotels, and it also furnishes the interiors of yachts and private jets. Its stated philosophy rests on quality and handmade work under the banner of Made in Italy. Emilia Burano lists three boutiques, with the flagship store and workshop on Burano, a second inside the Belmond Hotel Cipriani in Venice and a third in Los Angeles. The wider range covers bed and table linen together with bath robes and towels, then cashmere throws and silk lingerie, and handkerchiefs for gifts. Worldwide shipping is offered from the Burano workshop through the online store.
Venice / Italy
Tessitura Luigi Bevilacqua still weaves its prized soprarizzo velvet by hand on eighteenth-century looms once owned by the silk guild of the Venetian Republic, alongside damasks, brocatelles, and lampas fabrics for haute couture and historic restoration projects. The family-run showroom and shop on Santa Croce welcomes visitors by appointment to see the looms in action.
Best for Hand-woven soprarizzo velvet, damasks, and lampas on 18th-century Venetian guild looms
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