Millefiori Antique Venetian Trade Beads, Collectible Set of 4 Different Beads with White & More
SKU: AFE-2277
Sale price
$12.00
Shipping calculated at checkout
Out of stock
Description
- These beads are priced and sold as a set of 4
- Three very early beads and one stunner mixing white and clear murrini with white stripes on a rare brown core. This one at lower left measures 13x11mm
- At top and bottom are two beads with swirled or striped backgrounds with a small scattering of star murrine
- On the right is a very early uncolored glass core with a few star murrine applied
- Trade beads almost always have holes big enough for 2mm leather cords
- Millefiori, the Italian name for these colorful beads, means 1000 flowers
- The beads are decorated with slices of glass canes created either bundling very thin glass tubes together to form the pattern, then fusing them, or encasing round or chevron pattern canes in concentric layers of different colored glass.
- The canes are sliced into murrini, which are laid out on a hot surface and the semi-molten glass cores of the beads are rolled over them, picking up the slices.
- Made in Venice, Italy for the African trade mid-1800s to early 1900s