History of glass bead

The spread of Venetian glass beads in the world does not compare with that of Murano glass vases and lamps. From the fifteenth century, the quantity of glass beads that have arrived for hundreds of years in the colonies of West Africa, the Americas and the Indies was probably greater than that of any other product manufactured by man.

That of the Venetian glass beads is a second manufacture. The raw material to produce them is the glass rod: and depending on how it is used, the glass beads are divided into “rod beads” and “wrap beads”.  The “rod beads” are produced cutting the rod and finisheing it by grinding or heating.

The “wrap” beads are formed one by one by fusing with the heat of the flame, a Murano glass rod around a stick of iron covered with a clay paste, finished accordin to an  infinite variety of models: theese are the lamp beads. The first information on the presence of glass beads in Venice date back to the thirteenth century. Were procuced the  “Paternostro”, grains crowns for rosaries.

We have the beginning of production of glass beads starting from 1600 onwards. The  most popular glass bead were the Conterie and Rosetta. Conterie are the small glass beads, sometimes incredibly small, used to do embroidery, glass flowers, torchons.

The Rosetta glass bead is produced  starting from a perforated Murano glass cane that encloses inside, along its entire length, a twelve-pointed star drawing in colors white, blue and red brick. Through the operation of grinding, the piece of glass cane assumes an ovoid shape called “Botticella”: the design is in this way emphasized in all its glory.

Cannaregio is the part of Venice that stretches from Fondamente Nouve until the railway station. It is in this area who worked most of the glass bead makers, or in  workshops or simply in their homes. The  glass beads produced were exported to the  colonial countries, where they were apprecciated  with enthusiasm for the variety and intensity of colors and effects that were not frequent in local materials like animal bone, wood, shells. The rosettabeads were also used as currency (trade beads), to buy precious materials, spices, even slaves.

In addition to conterie the most appreciated glass beads in the colonies were the Rosetta and the so called  Mosaic or Millefiori glass  beads. Theese are formed at the flame, covering a sphere of  black glass with lots of slices of murrine.

The murrine rod has a multi-color design that spreads along its entire length.

Starting from 1910 the most important Company who traded glass beads was the German Sick & Co., replaced from 1921 by Dutch Handelmaatchappij. At the end of 1963, the sample of the Sick, consisting of 200 folders for a total of 22,000 beads, was transferred to the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam.