De Santillana is the granddaughter of famed glass manufacturer Paolo Venini. She began her career designing pieces for firms such as Venini and Eos throughout the 1970s and 80s. After decades of creating for market production, she debuted her independent works in the mid-1990s. De Santillana is best known for her minimalist glass works, which place a unique emphasis on color and form. Her innovative and experimental approach features delicate balances of opposing elements, such as opacity and translucency, and varying colors. In this early work, de Santillana elegantly explores the murrine technique through emphasizing the beauty of form through the simplicity of the oblong shape. She aims to transmit light through emphasizing the abstraction of pure color, as seen in the emotionally-driven contrast of translucent grey and bold yellow.