Here we have an ashtray so historic that even a non-smoker might be tempted to nick it off the bar. Currently at our Beehive, this collectable is from one of the most famous literary watering holes in the world, Harry’s Bar in Venice, declared an Italian national landmark in 2001.
Harry’s Bar was founded in 1931 by Italian bartender Giuseppe Cipriani and financed by heavy-drinking American patron Harry Pickering, from whence it gets its name. The Cipriani family still owns the bar and related restaurants in Italy, Buenos Aries, and New York. The distinctive fame of Harry’s Bar has also spawned sincere but non-affiliated imitators in London and Century City, CA. Located on a Venice street corner, the original is not particularly large, but is known for several specialties originated there: the antipasto Carpaccio (an appetizer of thinly sliced raw beef, venison, or fish topped with cheese, olives and greens) and an elegant summery cocktail, the Bellini, a delightful blend of 2 parts Prosecco and 1 part fresh white peach purée, served in a champagne flute. They also serve an excruciatingly dry martini – 10 parts gin to 1 part vermouth. According to the late, great food writer and chef Anthony Bourdain, “You get a pretty good plate of food—and the Bellinis are just fine. They just cost a f**k of a lot.”
So; fantastic Venice location, great food and drink, convivial atmosphere but also small and expensive enough to have snob appeal, is it any wonder the list of regulars included so many famous (and infamous) celebrities of yore? Italian conductors Arturo Toscanini and Giuseppe Sinopoli, inventor of the radio Guglielmo Marconi, movie stars Charlie Chaplin and Jimmy Stewart, directors Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles, Opera singer Maria Callas, Baron Philippe de Rothschild, Princess Aspasia of Greece, shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, heiresses and philanthropists Barbara Hutton and Peggy Guggenheim, baseball player (and Marylin Monroe husband) Joe DiMaggio, and more recently Woody Allen and George Clooney. Also authors Richard Halliburton, Truman Capote, and the most famous hard-drinking patron of Harry’s Bar, iconic Nobel Prize-winning American writer Ernest Hemingway.
Hemingway was a restless man who lived all over the world. He married 4 times, had 3 children, was a battlefront ambulance driver in WWI, reported on the Spanish Civil War, and survived TWO plane crashes in Africa. Between shrapnel, brain trauma and injuries suffered in the crashes, Hemingway was in unrelenting pain for the last part of his life, so it was not surprising to friends that he ended things himself at the age of 61. Nevertheless, his legacy is momentous. His novels, short-stories and non-fiction works are considered classics of American literature. The New York Times wrote “No amount of analysis can convey the quality of ‘The Sun Also Rises’. It is a truly gripping story, told in a lean, hard, athletic narrative prose that puts more literary English to shame.” Hemingway has influenced generations of American writers.
And here Harry’s Bar comes up again. In 1977, the owners of Harry’s Bar & American Grill in Century City started an International Imitation Hemingway Competition, AKA Bad Hemingway Contest. There were 24,000 entries in the first 10 years, with authors such as Digby Diehl, Jack Smith, Ray Bradbury, Barnaby Conrad, George Plimpton, Bernice Kert, Jack Hemingway, A. Scott Berg, and Joseph Wambaugh serving as judges. If you’re curious, two Bad Hemingway anthologies were published. Contest Rules: 1. Be funny. 2. Mention the original Harry’s Bar & Grill in Venice. First prize was round-trip tickets and dinner for two at Harry’s in Florence, Italy.
Tuesday Treasures was started by our staff member, Jeanne Lusignan. Each week she will be featuring items that have been found at our estate sales. If you would like to submit a treasure for Jeanne to feature in a future installment of “Tuesday’s Treasures”, please follow the button below and send us an email! Please attach a few photos of your treasure in a beautiful setting as well as any details you have about your item such as manufacturer, use, age, region of origin. If you don’t know about the piece, that’s okay! We still might be able to research it for you! Don’t forget to tell us what makes this item such a treasure to you!