Colorful vase Virginia woman bought for $3.99 at Goodwill store sells for $107,000 at auction: Ornament was by famous Venetian architect and sent rare glass fines wild

A Virginia woman's casual vase shopping at her local Goodwill led her to unknowingly find one of the rarest Italian pieces of art - now sold for over $100,000. 

Jessica Vincent, 43, was scouring her local Goodwill when a 13-inch Murano glass vase wrapped in burgundy and green brushstrokes caught her eye.  

She suspected there was something special about it and made a purchase for $3.99.

'It was so unusual. It had such quality. I knew it was a good piece of glass with the mark on the bottom,' she said. 'I knew it was coming home with me.' 

After a little research once she got home, Vincent was shocked to learn the piece was a 1940s design by influential Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa, part of the Pennellate series he designed for Venini, a century-old glass workshop on the isle of Murano. 

In an effort to learn more, Murano uploaded a picture of the vase to a Facebook group and grew even more excited by the responses. 

Members rushed to help her identify the rare item - some even began offering money to buy it. 

'People in the group said these are extremely rare, top-shelf pieces. People only dream of owning these. They said, "I would die if I saw that out in the wild".

'It gave me chills to see all those comments,'  Vincent said said. 

One member even offered her $10,000 for the vase, but she declined; others suggested contacting the Wright's Auction House in New York.

The piece was estimated to fetch between $30,000–50,000 when it went on auction on December 13 but instead sold for $107,100. 

Richard Wright, founder of the auction house, said: 'It's an amazing story that this very sophisticated piece of glass finds its way to Virginia. 

'It was expensive, not mass-produced and it fell through the cracks all the way down to the Goodwill. It's not even chipped.

'And this very charming woman who raises polo ponies finds it, and she isn't sure what she's found, but she's smart enough to do her research. She finds the Italian glass group on Facebook and is smart enough not to sell it for the first offer she gets is of $10,000.'

Vincent told Southern Living: 'We had a great phone call in which he explained how rare this piece was. After that, Sara [Blumberg] and Jim [Oliveira] (Wright’s glass experts) drove to Richmond. They confirmed it—and at that moment, I had chills.'

Sara Blumberg, Wright's glass specialist, explained how rare of an occurrence this was for the auction house: 'Never in 35 years have we had a piece like this in our hands. Which is really kind of an amazing thing to say because, as curators of the sales, we have handled thousands of pieces of glass.'

Scarpa is well known for his playful yet rigorous architectural style. Apart from his vase collection, some other notable works include the Castelvecchio museum in Verona, Italy and an interior for an Olivetti typewriter store in Venice. 

At the age of 21, Scarpa began experimenting with glass. In 1932, he was invited to collaborate with Venini, where he served as the design director until 1946.

The technique on the vase — Pennellate, which means brushstroke in Italian — was 'achieved by adding colored opaque glass to the vase as it was being blown, and dragging the material around the circumference of the piece until the level of desired transparency was achieved'. 

Vincent describes herself as a 'maximalist collector' and raises polo ponies on an old farm she recently purchased with her partner, Naza, outside of Lynchburg.

She further said about the auction: 'The money means so much to us and will do so much for our lives and for our future together. 

'This has been a real blessing, and I’m so happy that the vase is going somewhere where it can be safe and fully appreciated (and that it’s out of obscurity from a Goodwill!)'