Big Bead Little Bead Blog

Making: Lampwork Glass Beads

2012-01-13T16:53:00.000Z

What is Lampwork

Lampwork is a type of glasswork used to create smaller glass objects using a fixed directional flame to melt the glass, whilst using lamp working tools and gravity to shape the piece. It is a very different process from glass blowing which as the name suggests uses a blowpipe to inflate a glass gob or gather to form a cylindrical glass shape which can then be shaped with glass blowing tools. These small handcrafted lampwork pieces are the most time consuming method of making glass beads as each art bead is individually made over a flame, resulting in labour intensive but beautifully bespoke one of a kind beads.

A Brief History of Lampwork Glass Bead Making

Lampworking is the result of a combination of chance – that first piece of natural glass falling by accident into an open fire – alongside a long history of innovation, development and refinement. It is impossible to really determine when lampworking as a process was born but many of the elements that make lampworking what it is today can be traced back through the centuries to when mankind first discovered how to make glass.

Through archaeological excavations and examination of early glass artefacts it is known that small open fires were used for all forms of early glass making. In time small earth formed beehive furnaces were introduced. These primitive furnaces are known to have been used in ancient civilizations from Japan to North Africa, and seem to have dominated glassmaking prior to the birth of Christ. It was the Romans who took this basic beehive shaped furnace and refined it with the addition of exhaust vents and side access, creating what would effectively become the first true glass furnace. Alongside this they also developed and refined new glass working tools for shaping the glass that they produced. Glassmaking became a sophisticated and highly successful industry during Roman times, with 600 years spent refining their techniques until they were adept at shaping glass, colouring glass, recycling glass and even more impressively removing colour from glass until it was almost clear.

The next significant phase in glassmaking followed the sacking of Rome in the 5th Century and the rise of Islam and the exquisite artistry that this culture embodied. It is in the 10th Century, specifically 982AD, that the first recorded reference is found to Venetian glassmaking. In the 13th Century Byzantium was captured by the Franks and the Venetians, with Islamic glass making techniques quickly adopted within Venice’s established glass making industry. The epicentre for glass making had now moved to Europe. As Venice’s glass making industry moved from strength to strength it benefited from the Republics status as a major trade centre for Europe, Asia and North Africa. Keen to keep their competitive edge the Venetian authorities introduce protectionist measures banning the import of foreign glass, whilst ensuring Venetian glassmakers were discouraged from disclosing their techniques by moving their foundries to the isolated Island of Murano in the Venetian Lagoon. To read more about this particular region and its intriguing history have a look at our History of Venetian Glass Making in our Guides & Information section on our website or on this blog.

Times have now changed, and tourists are encouraged to visit the original glass furnaces and workshops on Murano to see how the workers create glassworks using methods unchanged for hundreds of years.

Following the continuing dominance of Venice in glass manufacturing and the pivotal moment Angelo Barovier invented cristallo clear glass in 1450, we jump forward to the early 17th century to find French, Germany and Italian glassworkers using the flame of an oil lamp or spirit lamp to heat and manipulate small quantities of glass. The glass workers would raise the temperature of the flame tip by blowing air into it through a narrow pipe or tube. This would generate sufficient heat to melt the softer types of lampwork glass rods available to them. So this is where the lamp in lampwork originated from, providing the first significant parallel between historical glass manufacturing and modern lampworking today.

Working in a hot environment this lampworking technique proved less than ideal as workers were unable to blow into the pipe or tubing consistently for any length of time without experiencing dizziness, or passing out through lack of oxygen! The first much needed refinement to this process was a hand blower, or hand bellows, as illustrated in the plate below. Although this was a significant improvement it had two drawbacks – it required one hand to operate the bellows and it lacked a mechanism to ensure a consistent flow of air to the flame. Simply put the bellows had to be released in order to refill them with air for the next pump.

This plate depicts an early hand pumped lampworking device entitled Fletcher’s Leather Hand Blower and Lamp (Source – Traditional Glassworking Techniques by Paul N Hasluck)

The next development introduced a foot operated bellows which freed up the workers hands so that they could again be focused on shaping the glass, but it still lacked a mechanism to drive a consistent flow of air through to the flame, without which a uniform temperature could not be focused on the heated glass.

This plate shows a foot bellow operated lampworking bench (Source – Traditional Glassworking Techniques by Paul N Hasluck)

The final refinement needed was an expandable bladder attached to the foot bellows which meant air could be stored prior to being pushed through to the flame, giving a more consistent flow of air to the flame. This would give the lampworker the ability to selectively heat areas of the glass object being worked on, bringing greater refinement and accuracy to the process. With the bladder system in place this lampworking process proved more economical and energy efficient, whilst allowing for greater intricacy and detail than could ever be achieved by glassblowing. It essentially brought down prices for glass objects and placed them within the reach of a far wider customer base.

It is worth noting, in the plate below, that the lamp working industry employed both men and women and that this was particularly evident in Venice at the peak of production in the1800s. Women would be employed to add the decorative elements to Venetian glass Trade Beads destined for Africa and the Americas. The bead cores were still produced in an industrial, male dominated environment centred around large hot glass furnaces, but the glass decoration and detail would be added later. This task was undertaken by home workers, most of whom were women, paid on a piecemeal basis to use an oil or spirit lamp to re-heat the beads whilst adding strings or dots of coloured glass.

This plate depicts a group of male and female 17th century lampworkers at their foot bellow operated workstations. Complete with bladder system, a heat draw or extractor above the table and a detail showing the lidded flame housing which plugged into an air outlet in the table. It also shows the tongs used to shape the beads (Source – The Corning Museum of Glass)

Following the fall of the Venetian Republic to the Austrians in 1797, Venetian glass production went in to sharp decline. With Austrian backing the region of Bohemia started its rise as the new centre for glass making in Europe, a subject which is covered in greater detail on our website in our History of Czech Glass Beads or on this blog. That is until the mid 19th Century when Venice regained it’s independence and a new breed of glass maker reinvigorated Venetian glass production. They took their inspiration from Murano’s golden period and by rediscovering long forgotten glass making techniques they brought new life to the furnaces of Murano. This takes us neatly to the turn of the 20th Century when events takes us across the Atlantic to America, albeit via Germany.

In 1893 borosilicate glass was invented by German chemist Otto Schott who founded Schott AG in the same year. This revolutionary product was made from silica and boron oxide which in combination formed a very stable glass with good workability and high thermal shock resistance. It was manufactured under the name Duran and for a time was very successful. However, during the First Word War, the arrival of Pyrex from America provided a non German alternative for patriotic English speaking consumers and Pyrex soon becaming a generic term for this type of glass. Pyrex was derived from Nonex glass which was developed in 1908 by Eugene Sullivan, Director of Research at Corning Incorporated Glass Works in New York. This was a borosilicate low-expansion glass initially used to reduce breakages in shock-resistant lantern globes used on the railways as well as battery jars. In 1913 Jessie Littleton, a scientist working at Corning realised this glasses potential for cookware, when he gave his wife an oven proof dish for cooking with. By removing the lead from the Nonex glassmaking process Pyrex was born – some 20 years after Otto Schott first introduced the world to borosilicate glass!

A good 15% lighter by volume and much stronger than soda based glass, Pyrex became an immediate success as a consumer bakeware product as well as for laboratory ware and telescope lenses. However, its melting point was so high that existing oil lamps could not melt the glass and so the material could not be easily worked. With the glass industry having always been innovative it looked to the welding trade for a solution. In time, by combining oxygen and natural gas, new burners were designed that produced a flame of sufficient heat to melt Pyrex glass rods. These flameworking torches quickly replaced traditional oil lamps both in mainstream production and at the workstations of glass artists and artisans who quickly adapted this new glass for artistic and novelty lampwork glass pieces.

In Europe, and in particular Czechoslovakia, Italy and Germany soda glass remained the norm as did the old techniques that had ably supported this industry for centuries. However, history has shown that they were not adverse to adopting techniques and innovations when needed and they were quick to see the benefits of the new gas burning torches in place of their now outdated oil lamps. So for many years glass making skills remained squarely in the Old World whilst the New World pushed forward with technological developments in glass production and factory automation. That is until some 25 years ago when the playing field was levelled somewhat by a group of American glasswork artists who, having either visited the foundries in Murano or been influenced by European glassworkers living in America, sought to recreate what they had seen. Although hampered by the secrecy and fear of competition that still shrouded lampworking production in Europe they used experimentation, documentation and collaboration to progress from initially crude lamp work beads to the levels of art glass lampwork that is evident today. Alongside the growth in their abilities came new glass bead making tools, glass torches and other equipment and lampwork supplies which were tested, developed and put into production. This contemporary lampworking collective eventually formed the nucleus for the International Society of Glass Beadmakers.

Lampwork Bead Making Today

With much credit afforded to the aforementioned group, lampworkers throughout the world have become recognised in their own right as artists and many galleries now exhibit lampwork glass – displaying the lampworkers individual creativity, style, technique and understanding of colour. Their work is shown and sold alongside the more traditional mediums of glass blowing and casting, as well as painting and sculpture, in the art galleries of Europe, Japan, and the United States. With the growth of the internet those with shallower pockets can also buy artist made lampwork bead sets from independent bead making artists, often sold through their own web sites, or through online market places such as Etsy and Artfire. At the bottom end of the scale you can also buy lampwork beads that are mass produced in India and China – just don’t expect to create one of a kind jewellery with that unique focal point that artisan lampwork beads can give to a jewellery design!

BigBeadLittleBead offers a selection of over 250 one of a kind lampwork glass beads for you to choose from, created by our own talented lampwork glass bead makers. For those that are working to a tight budget we also stock a selection of Chinese lampwork beads and Indian lampwork beads.

Lampworking Torches

As touched on earlier the lampworking process today is almost unchanged from centuries gone by, with a flame still the only method used to melt the glass rods. The principal difference today lies in changes to the delivery of the flame, with modern lampwork bead makers using single or dual fuelled torches clamped to their workstations. Most lampwork artists use a bead making torch that burns either propane or natural gas for the fuel, surface mixed with air or pure oxygen (either from a tank or a lampwork oxygen concentrator) as the oxidiser. This creates a cleaner and quieter flame. It is this change that has seen lampwork sometimes referred to as flamework, and in turn lampworking as glass flameworking. Some lampwork torches can also be run from portable gas canisters but these are usually only used by hobbyists or for demonstration purposes.

The image above shows a very tidy lampworkers workstation or bench with everything within easy reach

Lampworking Glass

The most common glass used today remains soda lime glass or soft glass and as a basic material it is no different to the Cristallo glass developed by Angleo Barovier in the mid 15th century and used by glassworkers from then onwards. This glass melts at a relatively low temperature allowing the bead to be kept warm whilst being manipulated reducing the possibility of cracking. The other option is Borosilicate glass, also known as boro glass or hard glass, which as we have seen originated as a laboratory glass, but is now also used for lampworking. Both of these glass types have their own merits depending on their application. The principal benefit of soft glass is its melting point, however it does not react well to temperature changes in the way that boro glass does. Because soft glass expands far more than hard glass when heated, and contracts more when cooled, it is far more prone to cracking through thermal shock. If, for example, a section of a bead cools too quickly that point will solidify faster than the surrounding glass causing a radial crack. Hard glass, or borosilicate glass, would be more resilient in this example. It is considered to be far more forgiving to work with, but on the downside it has a narrower working temperature range than soda-lime glass, fewer colour options, and borosilicate glass rods are more expensive to buy. In addition, its higher working temperature range means a larger and subsequently more expensive lampworking torch is needed. Typically this will use oxygen rather than air to work the glass because of its higher melting point, bringing added costs and some additional safety factors.

The image above shows a selection of soft glass rods in a variety of colours and thicknesses

Basic Lampwork Bead Making Tools And Materials

There are many lampwork bead tools and presses available for shaping hot glass to produce a variety of complex shaped beads. These are commonly made from brass or graphite to avoid the glass sticking to the tool face.

The image above shows a small selection of the tools available to the lampworker all presented handle first for ease of use

Although now more sophisticated in their use of technology and materials, many of these flameworking tools are simply re-workings of the tools that were used widely in Murano and elsewhere in Europe for centuries. Time has shown them to be the most effective way of manipulating and shaping glass. The following list details a core set of tools for the lampwork beginner, which as you become more experienced will open your eyes to additional lampwork tools and lampwork supplies based around the designs you want to make.

Torch – There are many models on the market with the innovative Nortel Mega Minor gaining good reviews with its useful torch mounted marver. Ultimately the choice depends on your budget, your skill level and the glass that you will be working with.
Mandrels – These stainless steel rods are the base upon which glass is wound to form a bead. The diameter of the bead mandrels determines the size of the bead hole. Various sizes are available but for a beginner a 2.4mm mandrel is recommended. There are much larger mandrels for lampworking available but they get heavier as they get larger. As you improve you can reduce the mandrel size to create beads with smaller holes.
Bead Release – A clay like substance which the lampwork mandrels are dipped into to prevent the glass sticking to the steel mandrel.
Goggles – Protective eyewear. Didymium lens safety lampworking glasses are essential.
Marver – A graphite or brass paddle originating from the French word marver which translates as marble. This heat resistant surface is used to roll, press and shape hot beads. Marvers can be flat or patterned.
Glass Rods – Moretti Effetre glass, CIM glass, Bullseye glass and Lauscha glass are four of the more popular manufacturers of glass lampworking rods but there are many others brands of glass rods for bead making available. Their diameters vary but should not usually exceed a quarter of an inch for bead making glass.

You should also make use of one of the following bead cooling products:

Vermiculite – A natural mineral that expands when heated. A large bowl filled with vemiculite pieces can be used to gradually cool warm beads.
Japanese Annealing Bubbles – Tiny, hollow micro spheres made from silica again place in a large bowl they can be used to gradually cool warm beads.
Fibre Blanket – Made from insulating ceramic fibres these blankets are used to gradually cool warm glass beads.
Temperature Ready Lampworking Kiln – This large kiln like container can be used to gradually cool warm beads.

If you intend to sell your lampwork beads it is important to anneal your pieces in a kiln to ensure strength & durability. Beads should be heated to between 940º-1050°F (depending on the glass type), until the glass reaches its stress relief point. It should be held at this temperature for a short time before being slowly cooled to avoid thermal shock. The annealing process will result in a lampwork piece that will last for many years and be durable enough for everyday wear. Glass which has not been annealed may crack or shatter following seemingly minor temperature changes or shocks.

It is also essential that you work in a well ventilated room and are safety conscious.

Basic Lampwork Glass Bead Making Tutorial

Prepare a mandrel by dipping it into the bead release to a length of about 6cm and then leave it to dry. A 2.4mm mandrel is a good starting size for beginners
Take a rod of glass in your right hand and gently warm the tip by slowly introducing the rod into the flame. Rotate the rod whilst you are warming it to ensure an even heat. When you have a glow at the end of the glass rod carry on until you have heated a pea sized molten ball of glass

Take the prepared mandrel in your left hand and heat it in the flame to an orange glow. If the mandrel is not warm enough the glass will refuse to stick to the mandrel

Place the tip of the molten glass rod on the mandrel and wrap the glass on to it, rather like winding thread onto a spool. Keep turning the mandrel away from your body

The glass that has been wound onto the mandrel will be glowing orange so take the mandrel out of the flame, moving it away from you whilst keeping it level. Let the glow dim. To make the bead larger return it to the flame and heat it again until glowing then add another wrap of molten glass. This will form a disc like shape prior to the glass melting down into a round bead. Continue adding the glass in this way until you have the size of bead you require

Take the bead out of the flame. It is best practice to just lower the mandrel towards the worktop remembering to keep the mandrel horizontal. Keep turning it and the glowing orange hot glass will shape itself by means of gravity. Don’t forget to keep the mandrel level otherwise the bead will become lopsided. When the bead has cooled slightly and lost its glow place it into your chosen cooling medium – the bead annealing kiln, annealing bubbles, fibre blanket, or vermiculite. Be patient and do not be tempted to examine the bead for at least 45 minutes as it will be very hot!

When the bead is cold remove it from the mandrel, clean out the bead release, wash it, dry it and admire it!

When you have perfected making round handmade lampwork glass beads you can start to add surface effects by decorating each bead with stringers using fine glass rods creating lines or dots on the surface. Cold working can also be employed. This includes such techniques as sandblasting, faceting, polishing, as well acid etching the finished piece to leave a matte sea glass like finish. The design and decorating possibilities are endless – limited only by the skill and imagination of you as the lampwork beading artist!

As you get more adept you can explore other lampwork flame techniques, for example, layering different colours of glass to create depth and pattern, adding inclusions into the beads such as silver, gold or copper leaf, melting and racking lampwork frit across the surface of the beads, or creating hollow lampwork beads. Adding enamels, imitation gemstones or small flowers called millefiori are also popular. Lampworking can also be used to create other types of artwork, including lampwork figurines, trinkets, curios, floral lampwork, Christmas tree ornaments and much more. You will also find lampwork bead classes, usually run by local lampwork bead artists, in most regions of the country.

Lampwork Glass Bead Resources

Corning Museum of Glass – Based in America this glass museum houses 45,000 glass objects tracing the history of glass across 3,500 years as well as being home to the Rakow Research Library

International Society of Glass Beadmakers – An international organisation dedicated to promoting the growth and recognition of glass bead making and lampwork artists

National Glass Centre – Based in Sunderland, England this glass museum and information centre works alongside the University of Sunderlands Glass & Ceramics Departments

Self Representing Artists – A global glass artists group dedicated to the art of lampworking and lampwork beading

Glass Beadmakers UK – Information, lampwork tutorials, links and pictures illustrating the skills of lampwork glass bead artists in the UK

Lampwork Glass Bead Further Reading

Complete Book of Glass Beadmaking by Kimberley Adams – A superb guide to inspire bead and glassmakers of all levels with detailed instructions and step by step imagery for successful lampwork beading

Creative Lampwork by Joan Gordon – History of lampworking, safety and materials, bead shapes, how to make lampwork beads, and decorative lampwork techniques

Glass Bead Jewelry Projects by Nelli Rees – A resource for those who want to make glass beads and art glass jewellery from lampwork focal beads, lampwork bracelets, lampwork necklaces to lampwork pendants

Making Glass Beads by Cindy Jenkins – Step by step glass bead making tutorials and lampworking instructions to help create handmade glass jewellery

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The content for a large part of this post was supplied by lampwork artist Lesley Silver of Beadsashore - one of our Talented Bead Makers

Making: Polymer Clay Beads

2011-10-21T13:39:00.001+01:00

History of Polymer Clay

In 1939, German doll-sculptor Kathe Kruse made the first formulation of what would eventually become known as the polymer clay brand Fimo, and gave it to her young daughter, nicknamed Fifi, as a modelling material. Years later in the 1960s, the formulation was sold to Eberhardt Faber. At the same time, other companies were experimenting with polymer-based materials, including American firm Polyform, who initially intended their Sculpey brand to have industrial applications. When the product was deemed unfit for its original purpose it was shelved until someone saw its potential as a modelling compound.

In the beginning, polymer clay was marketed heavily as a toy, its rainbow colours and ease of use making it a popular craft material for children. Yet from these humble beginnings, polymer clay has very quickly progressed into a varied and rich art form, thanks to those pioneering artists who first saw its hidden promise and began to experiment. It may not have the centuries of history and tradition that glass, ceramics and fine art have accumulated, but nonetheless, over a period of less than a century, artists and crafters working with polymer clay had explored a wide range of possibilities, encompassing and modifying techniques from other media as well as discovering innovative methods that were particularly suited to the properties of polymer clay. Some of these ground-breakers include Nan Roche, whose book The New Clay is widely regarded as the original polymer clay bible, Marie Segal, who helped Polyform create the first line of clay in the traditional artists’ colour palette, namely the Premo! brand. Also Donna Kato, whose demonstrations of polymer clay crafting on television introduced it to a new audience, and Judith Skinner, discoverer of a foolproof and easy method for making gradient colour sheets, ever after known as the Skinner Blend in her honour.

In recent years, polymer clay work has begun to be accepted as a legitimate art form, with prominent artist Elise Canning organizing gallery exhibitions showcasing the best of polymer clay artistry; the Racine Art Museum holds an extensive collection of fine art polymer clay, as do several other museums and galleries across America; finally, polymer clay is starting to evolve past the stigma of its beginnings!

Potential for Polymer Clay

Modern day polymer clay is a synthetic plastic made up mostly of polyvinyl chloride and various pigments; many polymer clay brands also carry lines of clay that have special properties, such as inclusions of shimmering powders, transparency, and glow-in-the-dark effects. In its raw state it is a soft, malleable material that can be sculpted and manipulated in a variety of ways, and when set in an ordinary oven it becomes firm and stable. Currently, the main brands of clay comprise Premo, Sculpey, Kato Clay, Fimo Classic and Soft, Viva Decor Pardo, and Cernit.

It’s not difficult to see why artists of all types, including sculptors and traditional painters gravitated towards polymer clay. It is available in a wide range of colours, with the potential for further colour mixing by the artist. It can be worked like ceramics, and yet unlike earthen clay, raw polymer clay has a lengthy open time; in effect, an unfinished piece can be manipulated and even left over long periods of time and returned to later without any difficulties, as long as the clay is kept cool and dry.

A further benefit of polymer clay is the low cost of starting up. Although there are many advanced tools available for the avid clayer, professional results can be achieved with just a few packets of clay, some old household objects, and practice, and the finished work can be safely cured in a domestic oven. (Curing refers to the process of baking clay at the recommended low temperature, often around 100 degree centigrade, to remove the active plasticizers in raw clay, and transform it into its baked, solid state). Many clayers find a pasta machine to be an invaluable tool for conditioning clay and rolling smooth, even sheets, although a acrylic roller or brayer can also serve the same purpose; simply tape two lolly sticks, or two stacks of playing cards parallel to each other on your work surface, and roll the clay out between them, resting your roller on these guides as you roll, for a sheet of consistent thickness.

Working With Polymer Clay

If you are interested in jewellery making, you will probably be most interested in using polymer clay to make beads and other components. Very simple beads can be made by twisting and rolling two colours of clay together to get a marbled clay, and forming this into your desired bead shape. To make the bead hole, piercing with a cocktail stick or thin knitting needle works well, or you can drill the bead holes following curing, which will ensure you don‘t distort your bead shape. In order to bake the beads, it is a good idea to thread them onto a length of wire or onto cocktail sticks and suspend them over a baking tray, or alternatively, you can accordion fold a piece of card and suspend the beads over this. Beads and other objects can also be rested on a bed of corn starch, which is easily dusted away following baking.

Polymer Clay Bead Making Techniques

One popular way to embellish polymer clay beads is the art of millefiori, or caning. Taking its inspiration from the glass-working method of the same name, polymer clay caning involves building an image or motif in cross-section and then stretching or manipulating the length of clay to a smaller diameter. When the length of clay, or cane is cut into, the original image can be seen running through it in miniature, in much the same way a word or picture runs through a stick of seaside rock. Pieces of the cane can be thickly sliced and baked as is to make charms, or thin slices can be shaved away and applied over a base bead to build up a decorative pattern.

The images above show a Polymer Clay flower cane in progress

Another widespread technique involves stamping or impressing raw clay with different textures to create an interesting effect. Anything that will not be ruined by contact with polymer clay can be used as a texture, including old pieces of fabric, sandpaper, wooden objects and metal implements. Plastics can also be used in this way, although be careful about leaving plastic objects in prolonged contact with raw clay as certain types can react with the plasticizers and cause a messy chemical reaction. Tools from other crafts and arts may also be used to great effect, including stamps, carved linoleum blocks, stencils and embossing folders.

Various surface materials can be combined with stamping and texturing for further embellishments. There are several brands of paints and inks that can be applied to raw or baked pieces, allowing you to stamp or draw an image onto your clay canvas. Metal leaf may also be adhered to raw clay, and a variety of colourful foils are available for use with polymer clay. A complex surface effect can be achieved by transferring a piece of metal leaf or foil to a sheet of raw clay and running it through a pasta machine to produce a crackled effect. You can also apply a light wash of inks onto this crackled sheet for extra colour and depth.

Glitters and powders, including crumbled chalks, are an easy way to add instant sparkle and colour to polymer clay as well. Simply brush onto the clay before curing, or use a clay-compatible varnish to adhere the glitter to a previously baked piece. A particularly effective product is mica powder, a very finely ground organic mineral that when brushed onto clay provides a beautiful shimmer, and which can be used to highlight raised or depressed areas in your work.

However, whilst there are many products available that are perfectly compatible with polymer clay, it is wise to make sure that what you are using will not react with the clay, either by checking with other artists, or by performing a test on a scrap piece of clay. Certain varnishes and paints, for example, will either fail to dry properly on raw clay, or worse, chemically react over a period of time; even if something appears dry, it may start to turn tacky up to two years later or more!

The image above shows a stamped Polymer Clay pendant with mica powder highlights

After making and curing your polymer clay beads, you may find there are small surface imperfections or fingerprints on them (although sometimes fingerprints can add a certain charm to handmade items!). To achieve a smooth finish and remove these marks, it is a good idea to wet-sand your beads with sandpapers, starting with a low grit (I.e. a courser grade sand paper) and working up through progressively higher grits until you get the look you want. You can then coat the beads with a compatible glaze or varnish for a high shine, or buff the beads with a rough cloth or piece of denim for a more subtle sheen. Take note, however, that if you have used metal leaf, foil or other embellishments on the top layer of your beads, sanding will remove most of your work, so try to ensure your beads are as smooth as possible before curing in this case, and protect the embellishments with a coat of varnish afterwards.

Advantages Polymer Clay in Jewellery Making

Learning to create polymer clay beads is a fun and satisfying addition to your jewellery skills, but there are also many advantages to using polymer clay components in jewellery pieces. Like paper beads they are a lighter alternative to glass and gemstones, you can incorporate larger beads and a greater number without adding an excessive amount of weight, making the piece more comfortable to wear. Even lighter beads can be made by using a foil armature inside a veneer of clay.

The almost unlimited potential for colour mixing also means that a colour swatch can be readily matched, allowing you to create a coordinating and complementary colour scheme with ease. Using a combination of the techniques described above, nearly any pattern can be replicated too, including the organic patterns and textures of gemstones, woods and stone; it is no wonder polymer clay been nicknamed the chameleon clay. Many eyes have been fooled by polymer clay’s talent for mimicry!

Using Polymer Clay Safely

Whilst polymer clay is certified non-toxic, there are certain precautions you must take to ensure your safety. At the correct temperature, polymer clay will cure safely inside your domestic oven, but if taken too far above that temperature the clay will burn, and produce unpleasant fumes. If this happens move the burnt clay outside, and make sure any animals are kept well away, especially birds, who can be particularly susceptible to chemical fumes. If you are at all concerned about using your home oven for curing polymer clay, you can place your pieces in a oven-safe bowl and create a ‘tent’ out of cooking foil to contain any odours.

In addition, any household or kitchen tools which have been used for polymer clay should not be used for food preparation or use afterwards; make sure you collect a separate set of tools for your polymer clay, and cure your creations on a dedicated baking tray or bowl. Similarly, polymer clay cannot be applied to or used to decorate anything that will have direct contact with food or drink.

Related Websites:

Polymer Clay Daily – a showcase of the best of polymer clay artistry

Polymer Clay Central – the original online hub for polymer clay providing tutorials, information and reviews

Glass Attic – a wealth of polymer clay information collected over the years.

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This post was supplied by Hazel Ward of Continuum Designs - one of our Talented Bead Makers

History: Man Made Faux Pearls

2011-07-27T18:15:00.016+01:00

The rare perfect sphere of a natural pearl, lustrous as silk and round as a full moon, has for many centuries been a prized possession and signifier of wealth. The soft creamy colouring flattered the skin tones of many a wearer, and their creation within the sealed environment of an oyster shell was nothing short of magical (the ancient Greeks believed the pearls formed as a result of lightning striking the sea). From Cleopatra, Elizabeth I to Elizabeth Taylor, leading ladies, and plenty of gentlemen too, appreciated the value and the beauty of these natural gems. Emperor Julius Caesar, was allegedly such a devotee of the pearl that he was rumoured to have been partially driven to invade England based on his desire for British pearls. He also passed a decree stating that only aristocrats would be permitted to wear pearls within the boundaries of Rome. For those who could afford them, pearls were worn as conspicuous displays of wealth, good taste and sophistication. Natural pearls don’t dazzle the eye in the way that cut gemstones can do, instead they rely on perfection of shape or unusual size to speak of their rarity and cost.

As with many rare and expensive natural products, from the earliest times a cheaper and more readily available alternative to the pearl was sought so that those who couldn’t afford the real thing could purchase a convincing lookalike. In Ancient Rome glass beads were coated with silver and then coated again with glass in an attempt to replicate the lustre of pearls. Small balls of clay coated with mica powder and then baked, were another early attempt to create the appearance of natural pearls. During the 13th century the Chinese learnt that they could cultivate pearls in the shell, but it was man-made ‘pearls’ that could be mass-produced that had the greatest impact on the fashionable taste for the wearing of pearls as their low cost made them available to a wide market. Initially the scale of production was limited to the workshops of Murano, but by the 19th century, Paris and Rome were the two centres of a bead making industry furiously catering for the pearl-laden fashions of the day. A young middle-class lady could afford to dress her lace with Roman pearls, and the wealthy wife of a landowner would wear Parisian pearls as part of her daytime toilette, reserving her finest natural pearls for soirees.

Two forms of faux pearls were manufactured in Italy, the earliest, produced from at least the 13th century, and hailing from the ingenious glass workshops of Venice, were imitation glass pearls. Some of these pearls were apparently made from an intriguing mixture of powdered glass, snail slime and egg white. This mix was pressed into shape and a hole inserted into the bead before the mixture hardened. In 1440, a publication revealed the secret of making pearls from shells and fish scales. The Venetian pearl merchants felt so threatened by the trade in false pearls, that they made it illegal to produce them and violation was punished by the loss of the maker’s right hand and a ten year enforced exile. The Venetian glass makers guild was just as tough in their decisions to protect their own interests! – see our article on the History of Venetian Glass.

The second form of imitation pearls to originate in Italy, were known as Roman Pearls (later this term was sometimes also applied to blown glass imitation pearl beads). These were formed from alabaster coated with an essence extracted from fish scales.

A business card for Antonio Lacchini from the 1900s inviting viewings of the pearl making process (Source eBay)

This extract from the London Literary Gazette and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, Etc., quotes from a fictional work entitled Tales of the Moor (published in 1828), by the writer, Amelia Gillespie Smyth. One of the tales characters recounts a visit to the city of Rome:

“I had intended to devote the evening, much of which remained before me, to a stroll beyond the walls, in the lone Campagna, which was alone wanting to complete my mental panorama; but on returning to my hotel, I found that business, trifling enough in itself, but important to my character as a true and loyal knight, would require my presence in an opposite and more ignoble quarter. I had been enjoined by my sister, and by one whose behests were perhaps still more imperative, to preserve and bring home a large quantity of the highly esteemed Roman pearls; and finding that the precious packet had not, as promised, made its appearance … I resolved to be my own messenger, and to console myself for other privations by a glance at this manufacture, peculiar to Rome; the fish, somewhat resembling the sardine, whose produce gives its activity, being limited to the neighbouring coast.I was not sorry to be led once more into a quarter of the city which I had rarely trod; through streets spacious, and chiefly formed of the deserted palaces before alluded to, adjoining to, nay even within some of the most decayed of which, a population of the wretchedest description support existence, Heaven alone knows how! In one of these large waste buildings was the manufactory I sought; and the number of persons whom I found employed in its dilapidated apartments, threw some light on the mystery I had just been endeavouring to fathom. They were, of course, chiefly females, but differing as widely in person and manners as the nature of their occupations was powerfully contrasted. In a sort of outer vestibule, some coarse Trasteverine Amazons, the very originals from whom Pinelli must have taken his frightfully accurate sketches of a she fight in that privileged Rione, were characteristically and congenially employed in the extracting from piles of the half-decaying fish the material which communicates to the artificial pearl its truly natural lustre. Here, again, sat a group of ordinary-looking women, mingled with some meagre and emaciated men, busied in forming the rude bead of alabaster, which, cut while that substance is yet soft, is, when properly rounded, coated over with the lustrous fluid before mentioned. This pearl, through far superior in nature and durability to the compound of wax and glass which the more volatile Parisian employs to the deceive the eye, has yet, especially when worn in any quantity, the disadvantage of such an overpowering weight … They are finally polished and freed from adhering impurities by the hands of female artisans.” 

The Engineer and Mechanic’s Encyclopaedia (Vol 2) by Luke Hebert, published in London 1849, has this to add:

“Roman pearls are formed of a very pure alabaster, considerable quarries of which exist near Pisa, in Tuscany. The process is as follows: – the alabaster is first sawn into slices, the thickness of the pearls required; the pearls are then formed with an instrument which bores a small hole in the centre, at the same time that the required shape is obtained. The next thing in the process is their immersion in boiling wax, to give them a rich yellow hue, and afterwards to cover them several times with the silvery substance obtained from the scales of the bleak. The singular beauty of this ornament, which perfectly resembles the real pearl, the varied patterns in which they are arranged, and their extreme cheapness, render them an object much sought after; while their solidity is such, that they may be dashed to the ground with violence without receiving the slightest injury; being thus rendered far superior to those of French manufacture, which are at once more fragile, and considerably less imitative.” 

The French beads referred to rather snootily in both of the above quotes, are those manufactured according to the method attributed to a rosary maker in Paris, by the name of M. Jacquin. In the second half of the 17th century Jacquin patented a method of making fake pearls from hollow blown glass spheres that were coated on the inside with ground fish scales, applied in a liquid form that was granted the poetic name, essence d’orient. The hollow balls were then filled with wax to give them a weight similar to a natural pearl. Legend has it that Jacquin noticed that water containing scales from the ablette, or the bleak, produced reflections that resembled those produced by the nacre on a natural pearl.

The ablette, or bleak, is a small fish of 5 – 10cm in length.

He managed to extract the protein that created this effect (guanine) and used it as an imitation nacre essence. Diderot’s Encyclopédie, published in France in 27 volumes between 1751 and 1772, has two plates of illustrations demonstrating the production of Perles Fausses using this essence to create beads.

Plate II above, shows the production of the glass spheres, blown from a length of tubular glass (the glass used is girasole a glass-type produced in Murano and in appearance was supposed to imitate opal, with a milky-white colouring). The ladies on the left of the illustration are, Fig. 2, using a table-top lamp and blowing to create the spheres from the glass tube. The second lady, Fig. 3, is using a table-top lamp to melt and smooth out the openings of the glass spheres were they have been cut from the tube. The other figures in the room are producing the glass tubes that the ladies are working with. The tables shown beneath the interior scene have four table-top mounted lamps or burners, with a foot pedal or bellows beneath to presumably assist the draw of the flame.

Plate III above, illustrates the next stages in the manufacture of false pearls. The lady seated at the table in the centre of the image is descaling fish so that the scales can be dissolved to produce a pearlescent liquor. The liquor presumably must sit in the pan to the right of this lady, although according to a 19th century source quoted in Glass in Jewelry by Sibylle Jargstorf:

"About 20,000 fishes were need to produce just 3.5 kilograms of scales. This quantity was reduced into 0.5 liter of concentrated liquid, which then had to be diluted for lining the beads"

So this solitary worker is simply representative of the labour involved! Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 have the job of blowing the fish scale liquor inside the glass spheres produced by their fellow workers in Plate II. The beads are placed in a basket and agitated by the cradle that sits on the table between them (the same table is shown again beneath the interior scene, and it is clear to see that the cradle can be rocked by the use of a foot pedal. This agitation ensures that the entire interior of the glass bead is covered with the pearlescent liquid. Hanging at the windows behind Fig. 3 are sieves filled with beads that are drying out in the air that flows into the room.

Next, the beads are passed to ladies Fig. 5 and Fig. 6 who have the job of filling the interiors of the beads with soft wax and finishing the beads. Fig. 5 is dipping the bead into wax held in the bowl in front of her, but it could also be blown in using a tube and the mouth. Fig. 6 then inserts a piece of rolled card that pierces a hole in the wax and forms the central core of the bead. The detailed instructions for creating these card cores are given beneath the main illustration. Fig.6 then uses a knife to trim the card as it protrudes from the bead as can be seen below.

In the above photograph it is possible to see the shape of the neck of the tube as it is still present either side of the beads. (Source: The Bead Database) 

A guide entitled A History of British Fishes, by William Yarrell, published in 1836, gives some more detail about the extraction of the pearlescent lustre from the scales of the fish.

“On the inner surface of the scales of Roach, Dace, Bleak, Whitebait, and other fishes, is found a silvery pigment, which gives the lustre these scales possess. Advantage has been taken of the colouring matter thus afforded to imitate artificially the Oriental pearl. When this practice was most in fashion, the manufactured ornaments bore the name of patent pearl, and the use was universal in the bead-trade for necklaces, eardrops, &c. At present, it seems confined to ornaments attached to combs, or small beads arranged with flowers for head-dresses. So great was the demand formerly at particular times, that the price of a quart measure of fishscales has varied from one guinea to five. The Thames fishermen gave themselves no trouble beyond taking off the side scales, throwing the fish into the river again ; and it was the custom for hawkers regularly before selling any white-fish, as they were called, to supply the beadmakers with the scales. The method of obtaining and using the colouring matter was, first carrying off the slime and dirt from the scales by a run of water ; then soaking them for a time, the pigment was found at the bottom of the vessel. When thus produced, small glass tubes were dipped in, and the pigment injected into thin blown hollow glass beads of various forms and sizes. These were then spread on sieves, and dried in a current of air. If greater weight and firmness were required, a further injection of wax was necessary. Of this pigment, that obtained from the scales of Roach and Dace was the least valuable ; that from the Bleak was in much greater request ; but the Whitebait afforded the most delicate and beautiful silver, and obtained the highest price, partly from the prohibitory regulations affecting the capture of this little fish, the difficulty of transmission, and rapid decomposition. This art of forming artificial pearls is said to have been first practised by the French. Dr. Lister, in his Journey to Paris, says, that when he was in that city, a manufacturer used in one winter thirty hampers of Bleak. Our term Bleak, or Blick, according to Merrett, which has reference to the whiteness of the fish, is derived from a Northern word, which signifies to bleach or whiten.” 

The mass-production of false pearls using the methods above described, happened within the 19th century, and other countries and glass-making centres also produced their variations on Roman or Parisian pearls. German and Bohemian glass bead makers used their own version of the opaque white girasole glass to produce hollow round beads which they would then either coat on the outside with a suitable finish, or blow silver into line the inside of the glass. The production of the interior lined glass pearls continued until the Second World War. The baton for glass pearl production passed at the end of the 19th century to the Spanish island of Mallorca (or Majorca), when the German born, Eduard Heusch (1865 to 1937), founded the company, Societé des perles de Indes E. Heusch & Co. In 1890 he had obtained the first patent validated for pearl production, and he had a vision of creating a man-made glass pearl that was impossible to differentiate from the a natural pearl. In 1902 he set up a factory on the island of Mallorca, famous for its tradition of glass-blowing. From 1906 French glass makers brought French-made machines to the island to mechanize aspects of the process, and a group of glass pearl factories was established under the name SA Fabrica. Other factories and producers moved to the island as the conflicts of World War I forced makers from Paris to Barcelona. In the early 1920s a system of manufacture was perfected that used an opal kernal – a perfectly circular core of opalescent glass crystal. By 1943, the company that Heusch had founded was known as Majorica, and was the world’s leading producer of pearls, manufacturing more than 2.5 million pearls. Trade continued during World War II, which meant that at that time Spain was virtually the only source of glass pearls in the world. During the war the company exported more than a million pearl necklaces to America. In 1952 came another breakthrough in the company’s quest to create a ‘true’ imitation pearl, when after testing many shell and marine products, a formula was produced that could be layered many times over the glass bead, replicating the accumulation of nacre on a natural pearl, and producing the visual and tactile appearance of a true pearl. The formula and details of the technique used remain a trade secret.

This image from the Majorica factory, dating from 1975, shows a something of the production method where individually pin mounted beads are dipped into trays of the secret liquid pearlescent coating. A short video history of the company also gives some insight into the manufacturing process. (Source: Majorica).

Majorica continues to create high quality beads for the luxury costume jewellery market with over 450 designs. Other market sectors are today served by mainly Czech and Chinese manufacturers of dip coated glass beads, often producing colours not found in nature but created with an eye for fashion, these beads retain the pearl lustre finish that many of us appreciate and wish to use in our jewellery designs to signify a sense of history and the beauty of nature, without the price tag. 

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People: Miriam Haskell (1899 to 1981)

2011-06-28T11:39:00.011+01:00

Miriam Haskell, seen below, was a celebrated American jewellery designer and business woman. She was noted for her original but affordable hand-made costume jewellery, which successfully reflected, and was sensitive to, both the economic times and historic events in America, be it the Great Depression of the 1930s or the war years of the late 1940s. Coming to the fore in America at a time when Coco Chanel had just launched her vrais bijoux en toc, or real fake jewelry, collection in Europe, Miriam was able to ride on an American obesssion with French fashion and model her early jewellery on European costume jewellery, competing directly with Chanel and Italian designer Elsa Schiaparelli.

Portrait of Miriam Haskell from the late 1930s. (Source – Malcolm H. Dubin nephew to Miriam Haskell)

One of four children, she was born in the small town of Tell City, Indiana, to her Russian Jewish immigrant parents. They owned one of the town’s dry goods stores carrying fabric and cloth, somewhat akin to an English haberdashery store. Miriam progressed through High School in nearby New Albany before studying at Chicago University for three years, but without graduating. In 1924 Miriam set off for New York City with a fabled $500 in her purse, more than likely loaned to her by her shop keeper father. On the 30th July 1926 a business permit was issued in Miriam’s name, allowing her to open a gift shop style boutique –Le Bijou de L’Heure – in The McAlpin Hotel on 103 Sixteenth Street.

Miriam Haskells first store window – Le Bijou de L’Heure (or Jewels of the Moment)

That same year, Miriam was joined by Frank Hess, a window dresser from Macy’s, who became her jewellery designer. With Miriam providing the business acumen a second shop was opened within a year at West Fifty Seventh Street. Continuing success saw the company relocate to 392 Fifth Avenue in the 1930s, going on to open outlets at Saks Fifth Avenue and in Burdine’s department stores, as well as a boutique shop in central London. In this short time frame Miriam had established herself as the owner of a costume jewelry company, with a clientele of society women including Gloria Vanderbilt, movie stars such as Joan Crawford, and Lucille Ball, and royalty in the form of Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor. In fact, it is said that Joan Crawford was such an admirer of Miriam Haskell designs that she collected nearly every piece that was produced from the 1940s to the 1950s (all to be auctioned off by New York’s Plaza Art Galleries upon her death in 1977). Publicity shots of these celebrities and others wearing her jewellery, along with design credits for films and theatre productions, and interviews all confirm her status within these illustrious circles. As a friend of Coco Chanel’s she also created pieces for Chanel’s couture collections.

During the Great Depression, which in America hit in 1929 and lasted a decade, Miriam Haskell’s costume jewellery provided affordable pieces which matched the glamour of the time, but used cheaper art glass, strass (paste) or rhinestones, and gold plate parures to achieve the look. When the economy merited it Miriam used more expensive natural gemstones alongside handmade beads from Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Italy, and Russia, whilst incorporating unusual metal findings and stamps in the designs. Whilst many of her signature pieces were known for their use of faux baroque pearls, Russian gold filigree metal work, and the inclusion of nature in the form of berries, leaves and intricately detailed flowers. She would often travel with Frank Hess to Europe on buying trips to Paris, Gablonz, Venice, and Wattens in Austria, which was the location of the Swarovski crystal factory. With European bead supplies curtailed during the Second World War, she in turn contributed to the war effort, asking Frank Hess to create patriotic new metal free jewellery designs, using natural materials and plastics, with the required beads and crystals purchased closer to home. After the war, Haskell renewed her use of high end materials, including pearls from Japan, and her designs became ever more colourful and vibrant. They also became more elaborate including larger focal pieces, and necklaces with multiple bead strands.

Running clockwise from left to right Egyptian Earrings c1925, a Flower Brooch in Mother of Pearl c1935, a Pearl Lily Brooch c1935, and a Naturalistic Gold and Pearl Brooch c1930

Running from left to right a Turquoise Bead Brooch c1940s, a Gilt Hinged Cuff Bracelet c1940, a Red & Brown Wood Bead Necklace c1945, and an elaborate Yellow Necklace c1945

Running clockwise from left to right a Flower Necklace and Earrings c1950, a Six Strand Crystal Necklace c1940s, a Purple Choker Necklace c1950, and a Turquoise Bead Lariat c1950

As with all success stories there has to be some degree of controversy. On this occasion it lies in whether Miriam was an artistic force within the company or ‘merely’ the business brains, and whether the credit for the jewellery should really lie solely with Frank Hess. Her nephew, Malcolm Dubin, who looked after her in later life, is often quoted to confirm the strong hand that she had in the overall designs as well as individual pieces. Regardless, what is undeniable is that, like fashion designer Hattie Carnegie before her, Miriam was a strong independent women who built a ground breaking company from scratch that still bears her name today. All the more remarkable because she was operating in an industry run by men, be it the company owners, the designers, the craftsmen, or the salesmen. It is also inconceivable that the Miriam and Frank would not have collaborated on the jewellery designs if only in terms of outline and direction, as this would have been key to growing the business. And as can be seen in the advertisement below and in the example jewellery pieces above, the results really do speak for themselves – pointing to the perfect partnership of artistic taste and business acumen!

This advertisement from 1958 is for a Miriam Haskell piece entitled Cascade – a shimmering fringe of baguettes in a lustrous golden setting

Being a strong independent woman also saw her take a number of prominent and influential lovers including Florenz Ziegfeld, who decorated the chorus line dancers of his Ziegfeld Follies with her designs, Bernard Gimbel of the Gimbels department store chain which included Saks Fifth Avenue, and John D. Hertz, Jr., only son of the founder of the Yellow Cab Company and the Hertz car-rental group.

In 1950, Miriam was forced to sell the company to her brother Joseph Haskell, due to poor health. It is said that the horrors of the Second World War began to affect her health and emotional stability, and the opportunity was taken to rest control of the company from her. Living in an apartment on Central Park South with her widowed mother through the next two decades, her erratic behaviour intensified and she displayed symptoms of depression and obsessive compulsive disorder. In 1977, she moved to Cincinnati, under the care of her nephew Malcolm Dubin, where she later died at the age of 82, on the 14th July, 1981.

In 1954 Joseph Haskell sold the company to Morris Kinsler. Frank Hess continued to design for Haskell until 1960 when he went into semi-retirement. Hess was succeeded by a number of high quality head designers, namely Robert Clark (from 1958 to 1968), Peter Raines (from 1968 to 1970), Larry Vrba (from 1968 to 1978), Roberta Stone (in 1979), and Camille Petronzio (from 1978 to date). The company was sold again in 1983 to Sanford Moss, who had been an employee of the company since 1958. In turn, Moss sold the company in 1990 to Frank Fialkoff with whom it still resides today. Renamed Haskell Jewels Ltd, it produces the luxury Haskell Line, with every piece still handmade in NYC often utilising the jewellery house’s vast supply of vintage beads and filigrees, as well as M. Haskell which is termed trend based jewellery aiming to be on the cutting edge of fashion. They also produce several private label jewellery lines under licence for Betsey Johnson, J Lo by Jennifer Lopez, O Oscar by Oscar de la Renta, and Christopher Radko’s jewellery. In 2008 they partnered with Kenneth Cole jewellery.

Today Miriam Haskell jewellery, particularly that from the golden period of the 1940s and 50s, is much sought after by collectors of vintage costume jewellery and can command high prices, though it is still possible to find reasonably priced pieces on auction sites, as well as left over stock of beading materials and findings which didn’t find their way into her end pieces. It is worth noting that her jewellery was very seldom signed before she lost control of her company in 1950, so confirming a piece as Miriam Haskell requires a degree of research. (A good reference book for this task is Miriam Haskell Jewelry co-wriiten by Cathy Gordon and Shelia Pamfiloff alongside the well catalogued advertisements produced to promote each new range). It was her brother, Joseph Haskell, who upon taking over the company introduced a Miriam Haskell signature, perhaps to strengthen the association between the jewellery, his sister, and their customers now that she was no longer at the helm of the company. That said, for very short period in the late 1940s, a New England jewellery shop did enforce a signature on her jewellery in the form of a horseshoe shaped plaque embossed with Miriam Haskell. These pieces probably constituted less than one percent of early jewellery production and as such a piece with this signature would now be a rare find.

This interest in Miriam Haskell jewellery also extends to collecting contemporary advertising watercolours produced by Larry Austin to promote her jewellery. These typically featured sophisticated looking models wearing the fashions of the day whilst sporting larger than life examples of Miriam Haskell bracelets, necklaces, and pins as seen below.

Two watercolours by Larry Austin used for advertising purposes in the early 1940s

Related Websites:

Miriam Haskell . . . the official company website for Miriam Haskell

Miriam Haskell Jewelry . . . Guide to Miriam Haskell jewellery by Cathy Gordon and Shelia Pamfiloff

Costume Jewelry: The Jewels of Miriam Haskell . . . a coffee table history by Deanna Farneti Cera

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History: Steampunk

2011-05-28T00:31:00.018+01:00

Steampunk as a concept came to prominence in America in the mid to late 1980s as a sub genre of science fiction writing, focusing on an alternate reality where the world is still moving forward on the basis of steam power. It is typically, though not exclusively, centred on Victorian era Britain, enveloping all aspects of life including technology, fashion, culture, art and architecture, but with an underlying science fiction, fantasy, or supernatural twist. This setting, both in terms of location and time, presents a crossroads in history when the modern world of industry, science and technology was born and the world could travel in any number of directions.

It is sometimes thought of as having a similar fan base to Cyberpunk but this is not the case, and it may well owe its existence to a reaction against the themes of breakdown and radical social change through technology that this overly dystopian genre embodies. Although Steampunk does have an element of social deconstruction and rebellion, it has a far more positive overall outlook on the world in general, as well as an aesthetic focused on a specific historical time period and a strong do it yourself ethic. As a philosophy it embodies the Victorian’s optimism for the future, founded on the Industrial Revolution and Empire, alongside the somewhat purer ideals of creativity and self reliance. In turn it creates a striking contrast between the rampant commercialisation, mass production and waste in our world and a nostalgia and appreciation for the hand crafted artistry, quality and beauty of the vintage and antique of yesteryear.

In taking technology as an example, the Steampunk vision would include such fictional machines as those envisaged in the writings of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, alongside real technologies such as the computer, but developed as the Victorians may have envisioned them. Other examples of Steampunk focus on the path not taken, taking forward technologies that have fallen by the wayside or not reached their full potential in the 21st century, such as dirigibles, analog computers, and other mechanical forms. To look at this concept in reverse it would be like giving a Victorian era inventor, such as Charles Babbage, Alexander Graham Bell, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Thomas Edison, or George Stephenson the briefest look at the technology of the future and then sending them back to their respective workshops and offices to design and build something from what they had glimpsed.

Pausing to look at the work of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells it is worth noting that these authors described theories and technologies that were far in advance of their time:

The portraits above show Jules Verne (1828 to 1905) and H.G. Wells (1866 to 1946).

French author, Jules Verne, wrote about space, air and underwater craft decades before these modes of transport had taken a practical mechanical form. This startling point is underlined by the publication dates for each of his most notable works – Voyage au centre de la terre 1864 (Journey to the Center of the Earth); De la terre à la lune 1865 (From the Earth to the Moon); Vingt mille lieues sous les mers 1869 (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea). Even more remarkably, in 1863, Jules Verne had written a novel called Paris au XXe Siecle (Paris in the 20th Century) about a man who lives in a world of glass skyscrapers, high speed trains, gas powered cars, calculators, and a worldwide communications network, yet cannot find happiness and comes to a tragic end. Verne’s publishers thought the novel’s pessimism would damage his growing popularity, and strongly suggested he put off publishing it. Verne put the manuscript in a safe, where it was discovered by his great-grandson in 1989. It was finally published in 1994.

The first non-fiction bestseller by English writer H. G. Wells was Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress Upon Human Life and Thought 1901. Originally serialised in a magazine it is considered by many to be his most futuristic work, as he anticipates what the world will be like in the year 2000. Wells tells of trains and cars resulting in the dispersion of population from cities to suburbs, the decline of morality as men and women seek greater sexual freedom; the defeat of German militarism, and the existence of a European Union. And in an interesting contrast to Jules Verne, he does not expect to see successful flight before 1950, and declares that my imagination refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocate its crew and founder at sea! His early novels, called scientific romances, invented a number of themes now classic in science fiction in such works as The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, When the Sleeper Wakes, and The First Men in the Moon. In 1933 Wells went on to predict in The Shape of Things to Come that the war he feared most would begin in January 1940. As we know the Second World War broke out in September 1939 just four months earlier than he predicted.

Origins

The term Steampunk is said to have originated from science fiction writer Kevin Wayne Jeter (born 1950), who was was looking for a general descriptive term to describe works by Tim Powers (born 1952) – The Anubis Gates; James Blaylock (born 1950) – Homunculus; and his own book Morlock Night.

The image above shows the front covers for books The Anubis Gates (1983), Homunculus (1986) and Morlock Night (1979).

Each of these novels was set in the 19th century and followed the general conventions of the speculative fiction of the likes of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne. It was this commonality that Jeter was looking to capture in a single word or phrase. In a letter printed in the April 1987 issue of science fiction magazine Locus, Jeter wrote:

“Enclosed is a copy of my 1979 novel Morlock Night … it’s a prime piece of evidence in the great debate as to who in the Powers / Blaylock / Jeter fantasy triumvirate was writing in the gonzo-historical manner first. Personally, I think Victorian fantasies are going to be the next big thing, as long as we can come up with a fitting collective term for Powers, Blaylock and myself. Something based on the appropriate technology of the era; like steampunks, perhaps … “

The term was then later attributed to Jeter by Michael Berry writing for the San Francisco Chronicle in 1987:

“Jeter, along with fellow novelists Tim Powers and James Blaylock, seems to be carving out a new sub-genre of science fiction with his new book. Whereas such authors as William Gibson, Michael Swanwick and Walter Jon Williams have explored the futuristic commingling of human being and computer in their Cyberpunk novels and stories, Jeter and his compatriots, whom he half-jokingly has dubbed Steampunks, are having a grand time creating wacko historical fantasies.”

Having coined the term it is typically thought that Jeter’s novel Morlock Night established the genre, but looking back to the 1960s and 70s, earlier proto influences can be identified suggesting an evolution rather then a fixed point in time. Keith Laumer’s Worlds of the Imperium 1962; Ronald W. Clark’s Queen Victoria’s Bomb 1967; and Michael Moorcock’s Warlord of the Air 1971 all have Steampunk qualities. In turn, Harry Harrison’s A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah! 1972 describes an alternative British Empire set in 1973, with atomic locomotives, coal-powered flying boats, and ornate submarines, all set off by Victorian dialogue. In 1992, William Gibson and Bruce Sterling brought the genre real attention and popularity with The Difference Engine. This centred on an alternative Industrial Revolution where the historical figure Charles Babbage, mathematician and engineer, is able to realise his plans for a programmable, mechanical, analog computer. Babbage’s Difference Engine brings the Information Age into the Steam Age, along with the resulting struggle between the working classes who fear the new technology and the Upper Classes who embrace it.

Moving away from science fiction literature and into mainstream media the world of film and television has also played its part. An obvious example being Walt Disney’s Academy Award winning 1954 motion picture adaptation of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and in particular the depiction of Captain Nemo by James Mason, and the visualisation and design of his "submerging boat", the Nautilus. Another example would be the figure of the eccentric inventor Caratacus Potts, played by that master of accents Dick Van Dyke, from the 1968 musical film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, along with his many promising inventions including, of course, that car. From television the key example is the American series The Wild Wild West, running from 1965 to 1969. It starred Robert Conrad and Ross Martin as two secret service agents, James T West and Artemus Gordon respectively. This half science fiction half western production, followed the two agents as they travelled aboard a private train across the West fighting evil as they went, with Artemus designing the gadgets.

The images above show cinema posters for Walt Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Warfield Productions Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, plus promotional material for The Wild West television show.

In turn, in the last few years the influence of Steampunk can be seen in computer games such as the Bioshock series, graphic novels (building on the success of writer Alan Moore and artist Kevin O’Neil’s The League of Extraordinary Gentleman), the Japanese anime film Steamboy from 2004, and the latest Sherlock Holmes film with Robert Downey Jnr in the lead role. Steampunk also brings vaudeville, musical theatre and the circus to music, with the likes of Battle Circus and Abney Park. In May 2008, multimedia artist and sculptor Paul St George exhibited an outdoor interactive video installation linking London and New York City, all wrapped up in a Victorian era-styled telectroscope. In fact, in terms of mainstream interest Google Trends took note of the Steampunk movement in 2006 and has registered a steady gain in its popularity ever since.

The image above shows the New York end of Paul St George’s Telectroscope installation.

With all the contraptions and gadgets detailed in novels and films, it was only natural that some people would want to start building these gadgets and bring Steampunk to life. Everything from computers, furniture, musical instruments, telephones, watches, and vehicles have been Steampunked. It is at this point that Steampunk becomes a design aesthetic built around creativity and imagination. There is no better place to view some of these makes than at the Steampunk Workshop, but by way of a small example here is a borrowed image from the site, depicting a LCD computer monitor. Home decor allowing, which screen would you rather be sat in front of you right now?

The image above shows two views of a fully functional Steampunked computer monitor.

Steampunk Jewellery & Components

This design aesthetic, and do it yourself ethic, most easily carries over into personal style with both clothing and props being made in a Steampunk style, both by the individual and commercially, for example at the Steampunk Emporium. Clothes are largely Victorian, alongside American Western, but with the addition of technology hinting at a more adventurous life than a typical Victorian may have actually enjoyed! And with this clothing comes a need for jewellery and the components necessary to make Steampunked jewellery. By way of an introduction, here are four distinct Steampunk jewellery items.

The images above show a Fondobjects Spanish Pill Box ring; an Antige Steampunk Jewelry Vintage Watch Topaz earrings; a Ghostlove New Era brooch; and lastly a Catherinette Rings Black Rose Cameo necklace.

To see further examples that you can make yourself, you could do no worse than purchase a copy of Jean Campbell’s Steampunk Style Jewelry, as it captures the essence of Steampunk across 30 different projects and is full of photographs, both to supplement the step by step instructions and to display the finished article. Another book released more recently is Steampunk Emporium by English jewellery artist Jema Hewitt which comes in hardback and Kindle versions! Jema designs and creates unique objects d’art incorporating vintage and found objects with polymer clay, filigree, and beads. Both books go a long way towards answering the question – just what is Steampunk jewellery?

Steampunk jewellery components are based on a basic colour palette of brass, bronze, copper and iron along with dark silvers such as gunmetal, brushed aluminium and titanium. High sheen gold and silver are rarely used as they do not reflect the antique feel and industrial solidity that Steampunk embodies. That said there are several do it yourself methods for darken these metals, take a look here.

This metal foundation is often then softened by blending in the romantic femininity of the Victorian age, so alongside the hardness of the metal you will often find coloured beads integrated into the designs. With amber, cranberry, ivory, olive and pastels reflecting the traditional colours used during the Victorian period. Alongside the beads antiqued paper, filigree, glass, lace, leather, and pearls, in varied tones and shades, can be used.

Other elements that are core to this form of jewellery are motifs, usually though not exclusively, reflecting age, industry and time. The most popular steampunk motif is the gear which is obviously symbolic of industry. Watches of all types, including wrist and pocket watches, are used to reflect time and the idea of clockwork. Old-fashioned antique skeleton keys are also popular, as are other found objects such as belt buckles, chain, charms and milagros, hinges, metal beads, military medals, monocles, pill box cases, stampings, thread cutters, and old metal buttons. Again industrial hardness is often softened by the inclusion of Victorian style cameos, filigree work, lockets, as well as embellishments depicting blossoms, flowers, petals and leaves, along with other naturalistic components such as animals, birds and insects. There are also some less obvious motifs that may not be as readily connected with either industry or the Victorian era. For instance, the fashion for cephalopods, namely cuttlefish, octopuses and squids, which is based on their links with pulp fiction and also the works of H. P. Lovecraft and Jules Verne.

The montage above shows a range of largely vintage Big Bead Little Bead beads, embellishments, findings, and other components that might one day find themselves alongside a found object in a piece of Steampunk jewellery.

In addition to the actual jewellery make, many resulting pieces also come packaged with a story, firmly placing the object in the wider Steampunk world. This may be in the form of a simple leaflet, or something more elaborate such as a wooden presentation box with an engraved brass plate, concept drawings, instructions for use, and a 'history' for the object.

Resources & Further Reading

This article was only ever intended as an outsiders view - looking through a small window into the world of Steampunk! However, if it has stirred your curiosity then have a look below for some hard copy and on-line resources written and undated by genuine Steampunkers. These will undoubtedly lead you to other areas within this fascinating genre!

Books:

The Steampunk Bible by Jeff VanderMeer details the principles and values of the Steampunk subculture, whilst tracing its roots through the works of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, on to its most recent expression in films and other media. In its own words it is “the definitive illustrated guide to the world of imaginary airships, corsets and goggles, mad scientists, and strange literature!”

Jean Campbell’s book Steampunk Style Jewelry describes exactly what Steampunk style is all about from a number of different individual perspectives. It provides step by step instructions for 30 individual jewellery projects provided by well known figures from the world of Steampunk. In addition, sidebars throughout the book provide information about Steampunk related books, films, fashion, animations, bands, and sculpture. The book is full of beautifully shot imagery to highlight the ornate intricacy of the designs.

The images above show the covers of the Steampunk Bible by Jeff VanderMeer and Steampunk Style Jewelry by Jean Campbell.

Related Websites:

Anthrobots . . . Insects!
Antige Steampunk Jewelry . . . Etsy jewellery store
Catherinette Rings . . . Etsy jewellery store
Fondobjects . . . Etsy jewellerystore
Ghostlove . . . Handcrafted couture noir jewellery site
History of Steampunk . . . All encompassing essay by Cory Gross
Jake of all Trades . . . Laid back blog
Steampunk.com . . . Wide ranging blog
Steampunk Emporium . . . Jema Hewitt’s blog for her alter ego Miss Emilly Ladybird
Steampunk Workshop . . . Blog with projects
Stephane Halleux . . . Animation, film & sculpture. This is a must see!

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Making: Paper Beads

2011-05-05T09:57:00.010+01:00

History of Paper Beads

Making paper beads is a traditional craft that goes back, in England at least, as far as the Victorian age. Young ladies would gather socially in their dining rooms, whilst making beads from scraps of wallpaper rolled on knitting needles. They would then polish the beads with bees wax and string them on to long pieces of yarn. They would then be used to make door curtains to divide rooms.

This practice was then revived in the 1920s and 30s for jewellery making.

More recently paper beads have been made in cooperatives as part of development projects in countries such as Uganda. This sees a move away from charitable aid towards business enterprises that provide sustainable income and development opportunities. The techniques used remains largely the same as used in Victorian times, but with recycled paper from printing companies and recycling markets, rather than wallpaper samples.

Paper beads are also made by independent bead making artists around the world and sold through their own web sites or online market places such as Etsy and Artfire.

Requirements

Paper – Magazine pages, wrapping paper, wallpaper, and coloured art paper, or more specialist papers such as handmade Japanese Washi or Chiyogami paper.

Pencil – for marking up the paper.

Ruler – for measuring up.

Craft Knife, Rotary Cutter or Scissors – for cutting out. If you are using scissors you should use the longest pair available so as to reduce the number of cuts required along each length.

Straight Edge – for cutting against.

Self Healing Cutting Mat – for cutting on.

Metal Skewer or Thin Wooden Dowel – for rolling paper against. Commercially made bead rollers are also available.

Soft Paint Brush – for applying glue to the paper.

Glue – for securing your rolled beads. Undiluted PVA is perfect but there are many other alternatives.

Wooden Cocktail Sticks – for holding your rolled beads when drying or when varnishing.

Soft Paint Brush – for applying varnish. A quality brush is preferable at this point as it is less likely to leave bristles on the surface of your beads.

Varnish – for waterproofing your rolled beads. Quick drying marine varnish is perfect and is usually touch dry within 1 hour and ready for a second coat in 4 hours. Experiment with gloss, satin, matt, and antique finishes.

Oasis Florist Block, Polystyrene Block, or similar – for securing the beads whilst varnishing and drying. Push a cocktail stick holding an individual bead securely into the block.

Basic Technique

Place your paper face down on your work surface so that the side facing you is not the side that will form the outside of the bead

With a sharp pencil mark up the reverse side of your paper sample by marking-up one short edge of your paper with divisions spaced 30mm apart. On the opposite short edge of your paper make a mark 15mm in from the edge and then continue with divisions 30mm apart. In this way you should have the makings of a long isosceles triangle when you join two adjacent marks on the first edge, points A and B, with the central mark on the opposing edge, point C.

Continue marking up the paper until you have the desired number of triangles to cut out. To simplify this step and to aid repetition you could make a template to draw around, or if the paper is of a suitable size use a computer, a graphics package, and a printer to print the layout on to the paper.

At this point it is worth noting that these measurements have been provided as a starting point, but ultimately it is the ratio of these measurements, combined with the overall length of the paper you are using plus the shapes that you use that will determine the dimensions and shape of your finished bead. Experiment!

Carefully cut out the triangles using scissors or for a more accurate cut use a straight edge and a craft knife or rotary cutter.

Take your skewer or dowel and starting at the wide end of your paper sample roll the paper around the skewer slightly so that it starts to form a cylinder. Once you are happy with the alignment roll this back and with a brush apply a little glue across the width of the paper immediately below the line of the skewer. Now carefully roll the paper past the glue and continue onwards ensuring that each spiral at the side of the bead is symmetrical as it forms.

At intervals apply another line of glue to secure your work so far. This is far cleaner than covering the whole triangle in glue at the outset.

When you have approximately 3 cm remaining, cover this remainder with a thin coat of glue leaving a border around the edges. When rolling the glue will be forced over this border without squeezing out over the sides of your beads.

When the paper is completely rolled make sure the end is securely stuck down before rolling the bead through your fingers with a light pressure to ensure it is cylindrical and secure.

Slide the bead from the skewer or dowel and transfer it to a cocktail stick and set to one side in your florists block or polystyrene block to completely dry.

When you have a good number of beads prepared you should then brush each bead with a few coats of varnish to make them water resistant. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions, but ensure that when touch dry you rotate them on the cocktail stick so they don’t stick when fully dry. Several thin coats give a much more polished result than one thick coat.

Refinements to this Technique

To make beads with different shapes, vary the size and shape of the paper triangles that you cut. The following options are a guide but it is possible to add your own permutations:

To provide a neater finish to your bead and to show more of the paper, simply cut the tip from the triangle as indicated in the diagram above. This will give a broader end to the last part of the roll. This is particularly effective if you are using patterned paper or paper with text, as it will show the detail of the pattern or lettering.

To provide a stronger, neater, flatter core to the finished bead add a rectangle of paper to the long base of the triangle as shown in the diagram above. This doesn’t need to be more than 1.5cm long, and should simply allow for a few turns of the paper around the skewer or dowel. It also makes initial alignment of the paper easier. It has the added bonus of making the beads sit better against each other when strung. On the downside, the initial stage of laying out the paper for cutting becomes more involved, but in the end it is worth the extra effort.

To monitor progress and to ensure ongoing symmetry it is worth while adding some parallel pencilled lines to the back of the paper at the marking up stage.

Once you have a set of finished beads experiment with finishes and embellishments to add extra interest – be it gilding, wire wrapping, adding fancy papers, using specialist glazes, or simply painting them, the options are endless.

Paper Sources

The main criterion for selecting paper comes down to weight. If the paper is too flimsy it is likely to tear whilst it is being rolled and if it is too heavy it will prove difficult to roll resulting in a loose and uneven bead. The only other issue is likely to be with finish. Before settling on a particular paper check that it will stick to itself with the glue that you are using and that any applied colour or print will not run when glue or vanish is applied to it. Otherwise, as you will see from the few examples provided below, the options are endless.

Art Paper

A trip to a local art supplier will present you with a rainbow of artists’ papers all neatly stacked in a display cabinet and available by the sheet! Used for pastels, charcoals and pencil drawings most of these papers are also the perfect weight for paper beads. In addition to the range of colours many of these papers are also finely textured or grained, which will add a little something extra to the resulting bead. A name to look out for is Fabriano Tiziano. When compared with wrapping paper this is a far cheaper solution albeit minus the patterns.

Copy Paper

This paper is perfect for making solid colored beads. It comes in a wealth of different colours and because it is designed to go through a printer or copier it is the ideal paper to use with a template image. With a little work on a graphics package on a computer you can set up a template document, which will print out cut lines on each sheet, removing any need to measure prior to cutting! Another positive is that it is always likely to be in stock should you want to do a re-run of a particular set of beads in the future.

Specialist Paper

For that really special bead, or a paper bead embellishment, there is nothing finer than using a specialist paper be it Japanese Chiyogami, Italian Fiorentine, or French marbled. These are the preserve of fine paper and book binding suppliers.

Junk Mail

These largely unwanted additions to newspapers and letters can be used in much the same way as magazines. A better end for them than the bin!

Magazine Pages

This is a great way to recycle old magazines and the resulting colour combinations achievable are endless. When selecting pages remember it is the edges of the strips that will be visible on the finished bead as well as the end of the roll. Unless you are using paper from the large format magazine, typically fashion related titles, it may be worthwhile opening the staples on the magazine and using a double page spread.

Newspaper Pages

The weight and composition of newspaper means it is best used for tapered beads. On the plus side most modern newspapers use colour fast inks but it is worth checking how it works with the glue and varnish that you will be using. A second benefit of newspapers is the width of the sheets particularly if you make use of the Sunday broadsheets.

Paper Shopping Bags

Whether plain or printed this paper makes for really good beads. Plain brown paper provides a wood-like appearance when varnished, which can be enhanced by selecting antique effect varnishes. Printed brown paper bags tend to have pleasant earthy tones, which again give a vintage feel to the resulting beads.

Parcel Paper

Like the plain brown paper bags this paper gives a lovely wood-like finish once varnished and is a nice weight to work with. Plus there are more colour options available than previously.

Wrapping Paper

Wrapping paper is an ideal medium simply because of the breadth of colours and patterns available. However the heavier better quality papers can be expensive and unfortunately it is these that are less likely to tear when damped or lose print when handled.

Warning:

Having been varnished paper beads will survive a rain shower but they don’t like to go swimming or to do the washing up!

Paper beading is highly addictive!

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Glossary: Venetian Glass

2011-04-26T21:40:00.042+01:00

Murano’s glassmakers held a virtual monopoly on quality glassmaking for centuries and as such it remains the longest lasting centre for glass making in history. During this time they developed, or procured and refined, many processes which we have made reference to in our History of Venetian Glass guide. This glossary describes the individual process, some of the science involved and who the technique or process can be attributed to.

Aventurina (also known as Aventurine or Adventurina)

This process involves adding micro particles of copper, gold, or chromic oxide to molten glass after which deglassification, during the cooling stage, results in the separation of the particles from the molten mass. This produces an affect whereby the fine particles are suspended in the glass and appear like gold flecks when they catch the light.

The root meaning of this word is sometimes wrongly ascribed to avventura (or adventure in Italian), rather than the correct ventura (fortune or chance in Italian), but both descriptions give a good idea of the skilled nature of producing consistent pieces.

This process was a closely guarded secret when first developed and refined in the 15th Century, coming back to prominence in the mid 19th century at the glass works of Pietro Bigaglia and then Salviait & C. It is used for beads, vases, and a variety of other objects.

Image: Vintage orange and black Aventurina glass beads.

Battuto (meaning struck or beaten)

This is a cold working finishing treatment using a grinding wheel to mark the surface of the glass. The grindings are made to differing depths and with overlapping irregularity to create a faceted fish scale or hammered metal effect. This is a similar process to incisio but with broader, flatter cuts, as opposed to narrow and deep markings. The process originates from the early 1900s, most notably from the Daum glass works in Nancy, France. In Murano the process was a favourite of Carlo Scarpa at Venini & C., as well as Alfredo Barbini, Lino Tagliapietra, and Davide Salvadore.

Image: Battuto finish vase in green by Carlo Scarpa for Venini & C., circa 1940.

Calcedonio

This process results in glass that looks like the semi precious gemstone agate. This quartz stone is characterised by veins or bands of differing colours and this is replicated in this glass making technique. It is produced by mixing colouring agents, generally copper, iron, cobalt and tin oxides, with metallic silver. This is then blended into a fusion of different types of glass which is then mixed further until the desired effect is achieved.

This was an historical formula from the 16th century which was then lost only to be rediscovered in 1846 by the industrialist Lorenzo Radi. It was used by Venini & C in the designs of Napoleone Martinuzzi.

Chevron (also known as Rosetta or Star)

A chevron is a bead type produced from a cane known as a Rosetta. They were drawn from a hollow cane typically with six thin layers of glass, traditionally white, blue, white, brick red, white then finally blue. This was then ground to produce patterns with five concentric stars with twelve points. The canes were chopped allowing large numbers of beads to be produced from each production run. Later, this cane was produced without the hole and Millefiori canes were born.

They were first produced in Murano at the end of the 14th century with the first reference to chevrons appearing in the inventory of the Barovier glass works in 1496. They were one of the core bead types used as Trade Beads destined for West Africa and the Americas. Like most Murano techniques of the time production processes were heavily protected.

Today, like seed beads, the production of Chevron beads in Italy is limited due to the influx of less expensive foreign beads, in this case from from India and China. The best known contemporary chevron bead makers are Art Seymour, from America, and Luigi Cattelan, from Murano, Italy.

Image: Contemporary Venetian chevron bead produced by acclaimed Italian bead artist Luigi Cattelan.

Conterie (also known as Seed Beads)

Seed beads created by the Venetian glass bead industry were initially small, opaque and round. The simplest form of beads they were produced from hollow tubes which were then chopped and re-fired for smoothness and colour. Typically sold in shanks pre-strung or by the kilo. They were used to decorate textiles and clothing, as well as for necklaces, hair combs and earrings. The peak of their production in Murano was in the early 1900s when these beads sustained the Venetian glass industry.

Today the industry is virtually non-existent in Italy, as the market is now dominated by Japanese and Czech distributors, offering a much larger selection of sizes, colours and cuts.

Coroso (meaning corrosive)

This is a cold working treatment in which the surface of the finished article is corroded by placing it in to a bath of diluted hydrofluoric acid or ammonium fluoride. The result is a rough layer on the items surface. By varying the temperature of the solution, the time in the bath, and the composition of the acid it is possible to obtain varied effects. It is also possible to mask areas of the glass surface using wax or paraffin to protect areas from the acid and to keep them bright. This technique was introduced by the French at the beginning of the 20th century and found its first applications in Murano in the 1930s in the designs of Carlo Scarpa for Venini & C., and the vases and figures of Flavio Poli for the Seguso Vetri d'Arte firm.

Image: Seguso Vetri d'Arte bowl with a corroso surface. Produced in Murano, Italy circa 1940 whilst Flavio Poli was artistic director.

Cristallo (also known as Cristallino)

A clear, highly malleable, virtually colourless Venetian glass whose discovery is attributed to Angelo Barovier in the mid 14th century. It got its name from its resemblance to natural rock crystal. Aside from its clarity the other benefit of this discovery was that it could be blown into vessels with very thin walls which saw glass move away from the heavy designs of the time.

Filigrana

A process from 16th century Murano used to make items with an opaque white or coloured glass lined core. It was achieved by laying thin rods of clear glass alongside rods of the desired colour, which traditionally would have been white opaque glass. They are fused together in the furnace and then moulded into a cylinder. After which they can then be blown and shaped. This process has three additional patterns depending on how the filaments are twisted and aligned. With mezza-filigrana, rods with one filament are used. With vetro a reticello a diamond shaped pattern is created by twisting two halves of an object in opposite directions while heating and distorting the straight lines of the filigrana rods, creating a diamond mesh pattern. Finally vetro a retortolio consists of two filaments twisted into a spiral. All the most important Murano glass factories used this technique.

Image: A clear glass mezza filigrana wine glass with grand shaft, red toned with gold, by Seguso Vetri d'Arte circa 1985.

Ghiacciato (meaning ice)

A process used to create a cracked appearance in a piece by lowering the hot glass into cold water for a few seconds and then placing the item back into the heat of the furnace. The sudden cooling of the surface area whilst the core remains molten forces a non uniform contraction of the surface causing fine cracks which are then sealed and secured by the reheating of the surface This process was in use from the 16th to the early 18th century primarily in the production of glasses, bowls and beads. It then came to prominence again in the 20th century with craquel effect glass light fixtures. Particulalry noteworthy in this regard are the chandeliers produced by Fratelli Toso in the 1930s.

Incamicato

A multilayered glass plating technique, from the 1920s, where different layers of glass are placed over each other before being incased in a final cristallo or transparent coloured layer. This process provides great flexibility in design and finished plated pieces may be a single colour or include additional processes such as sommerso. It was a process quickly adopted up by all the most important Murano glass factories from the 1920s onwards, including Venini & C., Fratelli Toso, Vetreria Artistica Barovier & C. In large pieces it can create a great visual impact and these are much sought after.

Image: Green lattimo incamiciato green glass vase with vertical stripes and applied drops. Produced by Venini & C., circa 1928.

Incisio (meaning incision)

Like battuto this is a cold working finishing treatment using a grinding wheel. In this case the lines are narrow but deep and linear in fashion. In Murano the process was a favourite of Carlo Scarpa at Venini & C., as well as Alfredo Barbini, Lino Tagliapietra, and Davide Salvadore.

Image: An orange glass stoppered bottle with horizontal inciso produced by Paolo Venini for Venini & C. circa 1950.

Inclamo

Is the process of fusing together many different pieces of coloured glass while pliable and then forming them into a single object usually a vase or goblet. It originated in the Islamic world before being adopted and adapted in Murano. It is an expensive technique requiring great skill on the part of the glass maker, as the individual blown parts need to be identical in shape, or circumference, prior to being warm jointed together and shaped into the end form. Notable forms being the vases and lighting created by Thomas Stearns in the 1960s for Venini & C.

Lattimo

Refers to an opaque milky white glass produced in the mid 15th century to imitate porcelain, allowing direct competition with real porcelain pieces from China. At this time it was particularly useful for manufacturing objects decorated with multicolored enamels and was opacified using tin oxide or arsenic. The word originates from latte meaning milk.

The process fell into disuse only to be revived in the 1920s by the key glassworks of Barovier & C., Venini & C., and MVM Cappellin & C. The latter was the first to use it without the addition of other colours for a series of geometric vases exhibited at the 1927 International Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Monza. In the 1950s it was adopted by almost all the glass furnaces on the island, being used more diversely, including in the famous Commedia dell'Arte figures by Fulvio Bianconi for Venini & Co. In modern production the opaque effect is created by adding calcium and sodium fluorides to the molten glass mix in the form of fluorine compounds such as cryolite or fluorine spar, as well as zinc oxide and alumina.

Image: A mould blown lattimo vase attributed to Tomaso Buzzi or Carlo Scarpa for Venini & C. circa 1932 to 1935.

Massiccio

A technique in which large or heavy objects are produced without being blown because the molten glass is too heavy or dense to handle creatively. The glass is therefore shaped, moulded, or formed whilst the glass is hot and malleable. This process is often used for thick glass sculptures.

Millefiori (literally meaning a thousand flowers)

Is one of the oldest and most well known techniques still in use in Murano. It is used to describe small mosaic cross sections of glass. The process involves stretching and shaping regular arrangements of multicoloured rods of glass. Normally the colours are added and a shape is created before the molten glass is stretched into a long thin cane. The cane can then be cut to size for use as beads or placed on a gather of molten glass (pea) for inclusion into murrina paperweights or blown vases.

Murrina

One of the oldest techniques used in glass making dating back to Roman times and rediscovered in the 1800s. Thin sections of glass rod are placed together to form a pre-designed image before being fused together and then formed and moulded into shape or even blown. The rods are often designed to create a floral or geometric design.

Pasta Vitrea

Is based on the same principle as lattimo glass but takes it a stage further and as a result is one the most difficult glass making techniques to master. A coloured opaque glass is made by adding clear or coloured crystals to molten glass until it becomes similar in appearance to ceramic. Because of the complexity and mixed results this process was only been utilised by a handful of glass works at the outset of the 1900s, namely Venini & C. and MVM Cappellin & C.. Post war it was adopted more widely particularly when glass figures became fashionable in the 1950s. Only the American designer Thomas Stearns made large items entirely of vitreous paste for Venini & C.

Image: A red gather fused burst gold foil iridised pasta vitrea vase produced by Carlo Scarpa for MVM Cappellin & C. circa 1929.

Pennellate

A rare process developed by Carlo Scarpa for Venini & C in 1940. It sees the fusion of glass to the surface of a hot item that is still on the blower's pipe. Small balls of coloured glass are applied and then pulled over the surface of the blown object to leave a slight colour trace which is reminiscent of an artists brush or pennellata. This process is repeated until the entire surface of the object is covered. Often opaque glass in various shades of yellow, orange and red is used to obtain a slightly iridescent effect on the surface.

Image: A pennellate bowl by Carlo Scarpa circa 1942.

Perle a Lume Venetian Beads (also known as Lampwork or Wound beads)

These beads are often called wound beads because molten glass is wound around a mandrel to form the bead. Originally this was a ferrous mandrel covered with a mixture of silica and clay which gave the bead some room for contraction when it cooled and helped with removal of the bead from the mandrel. In 1935 copper mandrels were introduced into Murano by the Moretti glass works and soon became the standard tool for making lampwork beads. They proved more economical as the mandrels did not need to be coated and breakages were reduced as the copper mandrel was cut off just below the bead and the cut off section was placed in nitric acid which etched the copper from inside the bead. Today, bead makers in Venice and Murano still use both methods, using stainless steel with a bead release material for more delicate beads, or for beads with silver in them which tends to turn dark if it comes into contact with acid.

Pulegoso

A technique used to create an almost opaque glass through the inclusion of innumerable bubbles or puleghe in the glass. This process was invented by Napoleone Martinuzzi in the late 1920s, whilst he was artistic director at Venini & C. The bubbles are created by adding salts, generally sodium carbonate or bicarbonate directly into the molten glass. The salt breaks down due to the heat, which releases gasses in the form of carbon dioxide, which disperse within the glass forming bubbles as well as giving the glass an irregular surface texture.

This has remained an important process from the 1930s to the present day, with Vetreria Artistica, Barovier & C., Seguso Vetri d'Arte and others producing vases, figures and the famous blown and hand-shaped glass cactuses. Twenty five years later during the 1950s Dino Martens made the famous pittorici vases for the firm of Aureliano Toso, whilst Gae Aulenti was combining metal and pulegoso glass for Venini & C., in 1995.

Image: A pulegoso lamp produced by Ercole Barovier for Artistica Barovier circa 1930.

Sommerso (meaning submerged)

A technique using coloured threads or small artistic designs that are then submerged into various crucibles of colourless transparent molten glass to form a multi layered or multi hued effect. Once again Carlo Scarpa fro Venini & C. was at the forefront of this process from the mid 1930s. He made use of a layer of coloured glass along with gold leaf and frequently air bubbles which he would capture in a thick layer of transparent glass. This technique was quickly taken up by many of the other Muranese glass factories.

Image: Vintage Venetian baby blue sommerso lamp worked glass beads with blue opaque glass and aventurina, circa 1955.

Tessere

Created by fusing together pieces of glass of almost random shapes or sizes before blowing or working into a finished object.

Image: Barovier & Toso clear glass and fused ochre brown structured glass vase circa 1957.

Tessuto

A multi coloured glass invented by Carlo Scarpa for Venini and C. in the late 1930s. Based on the filigrana process, very thin rods of coloured glass are fused together to create an alternating pattern of stripes and then blown.

Image: Paolo Venini tessuto matte finish vase with mint green, brown and white stripes with horizontal texturing, circa 1985.

Zanfirico
A type of glass cane made by assembling a bundle of different coloured rods and heating them until soft. The bundle is then attached to two metal pontils or metal rods before being drawn out and elongated. During this process the bundle is twisted to produce a spiral pattern. This process was originally known as vetro a retorti, but was renamed in recognition of a Venetian dealer called Antonio Sanquirico, who in the 1830s encouraged the revival of this and other traditional techniques on Murano.

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History: Venetian Glass (Part 3 of 3)

2011-04-22T00:24:00.015+01:00

20th Century

Prior to the start of the 20th century, years of simply repeating traditional glass forms had caused the quality and popularity of Murano’s blown glass to decline dramatically. Then, a succession of innovative glass blowers began to reinvigorate Murano as a centre for art glass, abandoning repetitive production and challenging tradition with inventive techniques, whilst embracing contemporary styles and tastes. By the 1950s, Murano glass had redoubled its historical importance and was again leading the world in glass making. But with two World Wars and the economic and political uncertainty that follows any conflict it was not an easy journey.

By the turn of the century the Fratelli Toso glassworks had a fifty-year heritage to rely on, being primarily recognized for its works with murrina. But even with this strong base the outbreak of World War I interrupted the progress of both Fratelli Toso, and the much anticipated recovery of Murano glassmaking in general. The Salviati & C. glassworks (by now without Antonio Salviati and having been renamed Compagnia di Venezia e Murano), had arguably a greater international reputation and grounding than Toso, and yet it ceased production in 1909. This followed the sale of the company by its British backers, archaeologist Austen Henry Layard and antiquarian Sir William Drake, to a Venetian businessman named Tosolini, who owned a number of shops along St. Mark's Square. Under his management, the company stopped production and focused solely on commercial distribution from these retail outlets.

It was left to a partnership between two Milanese outsiders to bring about the change that had been promised in Murano at the turn of the century. Paolo Venini and Giacomo Cappellin came to Venice from Milan with the express intention of rejuvenating the Venetian glass industry. In 1921 they formed Vetri Soffiati Muranesi Cappellin, Venini & C.

Paolo Venini 1895 - 1959 (Image source Venini)

Paolo Venini was a lawyer with no experience of glass blowing, but he did have an entrepreneurial spirit, an openness to new ideas, and a willingness to collaborate with other artists and specialisations, such as architects. Giacomo Cappellin, a Venetian by birth, was an art dealer who owned and operated an antique shop on Milan's via Monte Napoleone (now famous as the premier street in the Milan fashion district). The company’s focus was to be the modern design trends that were sweeping the world and that had been the centre for debate in artistic circles in Milan. The designs were to be along simple lines, using the thinnest of transparent glass, and with delicate colours, all contrasting strikingly with the fashion for heavy decoration of the time. They brought in Vittorio Zecchin as artistic director and began production.

Vittorio Zecchin 1878 - 1947 (Image source Venini)

Their new designs were immediately recognized both in Italy and abroad. Much of this success was down to the fact that from the outset Venini’s main goal was to expand his company’s influence overseas. To achieve this he sought the collaboration of the most talented artists of the time. He also worked alongside his designers, with the aim of directing taste whilst personally checking every collection produced under his name. His confident direction, along with the fine quality of the items produced assured the glasshouse this critical and commercial success. With the confidence that this gave the company they opened sizeable retail shops in Venice, Paris and Milan. However, the partnership didn’t last long, and in 1925 Venini and Cappellin parted company after just four years, to establish independent glassworks.

Paolo Venini started Vetri Soffiati Muranesi Venini & C. in 1925, hiring Napoleone Martinuzzi as manager of his new venture. At the time Martinuzzi was a sculptor overseeing the Murano Glass Museum. He developed the pulegoso technique which in 1930 proved to be a watershed moment, since opaque glass completely broke with tradition and opened up a whole new direction for creative thinking and experimentation. The first vases made by Venini with this new material were hailed by the critics who saw the Murano glass industry rising up again.

In turn Giacomo Cappellin also opened a new furnace in 1925, Maestri Vetrai Muranesi Cappellin & C., retaining Vittorio Zecchin as artistic director as well as the majority of the master glass blowers from the previous firm, notably Diego Barovier, Attilio Moratto, Malvino Pavanello and Giovanni Seguso. In 1926 Zecchin left the firm to be replaced by a then unknown architect, Carlo Scarpa. This firm was to close in 1932 due to financial mismanagement, but not before Scarpa had made a reputation for himself that in time would see him become one of the most innovative artistic glass workers of the century. His first few years at the firm saw production continue to be influenced by Zecchin’s designs whilst the new company found its feet, but Scarpa then found his own direction with the re-introduction of historical techniques, the use of opaque glass, and bright colours.

Carlo Scarpa 1906 - 1978 (Image source Marcello Ottolenghi)

The closure of the Cappellin furnace coincided with the departure of Napolene Martinuzzi from Venini to set up his own furnace in partnership with Francesco Zecchin, an engineer by education, who had also worked at Venini’s. This left an opening at Venini for an artistic director which Scarpa filled. His use of innovative techniques flourished during his time at Venini & Co. In addition to creating new ways to work with molten glass such as sommersi, he developed new surface treatments including corroso, battuto, fasce and pennellate. Paolo Venini also started to take a more active role in the day to day operations of the glassworks and began co-designing works with Scarpa. His diamante glass pieces date from 1936, and he created the murrine romana in collaboration with Scarpa. Following the war, he created bottles with brightly coloured stripes, vessels in mosaico zanfirico and mosaico tessuto, windows in vetro mosaico, and battuto vessels. In collaboration with Fulvio Bianconi, in the early 1950s, he created vessels such as the fazzoletti, or handkerchief vase, which is a classic example of the production of the time and were enormously successful.

Another entrepreneur and designer of note, who rose to prominence in the 1930s, was Ercole Barovier, son of Benvenuto Barovier. With his brother, Nicolo, they took over the creative direction of their father's company, Vetreria Artistica Barovier & C. In 1939, after the brothers went their separate ways, the company was renamed Barovier & Toso C., after Ercole brokered a successful merger with Decio and Artemio Toso who were now managing the Fratelli Toso. Over the course of his 50-year career, he invented numerous decorative techniques which contributed significantly to the rejuvenation of art glass. In the 1920s Barovier was known for his work with murrina and the totally original primavera glass collection. He spent much of his time during the 1930s experimenting with new multi-coloured effects, finally perfecting a technique he named colorazione a caldo senza fusione. In the post war period his interest turned to traditional techniques and which he would reinterpret. During the 1950s and 60s he presented new interpretations of the tessere technique.

Ercole Barovier 1889 - 1974 (Image source Barovier & Toso)

It was through Pauly & C., a company born in 1903, and a series of mergers and acquisitions that the early work and designs of both Salviati and Cappelin were returned to production. The company was formed by Emilio Pauly, Alessandro Hirscber Hellman, Vittorio Emanuele Toldo and Ernesto Graziadei. In 1919, Pauly & C. and Compagnia di Venezia e Murano were both purchased by the Milan Società Anonima Sanitaria, which subsequently resold them the following year to Gaetano Ceschina of Milan. This newly merged company, now renamed Pauly & C. – Compagnia Venezia Murano, resumed production of glass on the island of Murano in 1925.

The entrance bridge to Pauly & C in Venice as it stands today.

The company grew again in 1933 with the acquisition of Maestri Vetrai Muranesi Cappellin & C. (or MVM Cappellin), the glass company formed in 1925 by Giacomo Cappellin following his split away from Paolo Venini. This gave Pauly & C. the rights to the works and designs of MVM Cappellin, including the historicaly important early designs and techniques of Vittorio Zecchin and Carlo Scarpa.

Through the efforts of all of these firms, and their master glassmakers, Murano glass survived the test of two world wars. With new market places opening up through increased travel and tourism the 1950s and 1960s were to be an artistically memorable period. Production also moved into new areas with the growth of specialist lighting companies, as well as jewellery producers, and high end glass sculptors and artists. Other areas were also largely lost to Murano due to inflated productions costs. Bead making being one such industry where production shifted to Japan, India and China, with only the Czech Republic retaining a strong market presence in Europe. The few bead makers that have survived in Venice and Murano have had to find a niche at the high end of the market.

The next challenge for Murano, and indeed for any prestigious products, proved to be the problem of counterfeiting. In the 1980s onwards, factories in Asia began producing 'replicas' of classic Murano glassware, vases, and millefiore objects, including beads. Over the next twenty years the sophistication of the production processes began to mirror those of Murano but at a fraction of the labour costs. By way of an example, the bead making industries in India began making rosetta or chevron beads in the mid 1980s using pre-prepared sections of hot strips of glass that were then composited together to form a cane. Due to the limited nature of this manufacturing process these 'impostors' could be identified by the misaligned points to the chevron stars. Ten years in later in China chevron beads were made from moulded star canes in exactly the same manner as Venetian chevron beads and it is now difficult to tell the Chinese version from a bead produced in Murano.

Set 1 - Venetian Rosetta bead circa1650

Set 2 - Indian Chevron bead circa 1980

Set 3 - Chinese Chevron bead circa 2005

In order to maintain the integrity of their products and to safeguard their profits the Promovetro, or glassmakers consortium, came up with a Murano trademark (designed by French artist Mathieu Thibautto ), a lilac sticker that displays a cana de soffio or glass blowers pipe and the Italian words, Artistic Glass Murano. The intention being to make their glass more difficult to copy. This was registered with the European Union in September 2002 and can be seen below:

Today, some of the most important brands of glass in the world are still produced in the historical glass factories on Murano. Most notably Barovier & Toso, Venini, Pauly and Seguso. With Barovier & Toso officially recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records as one of the 100 oldest companies in the world, formed in 1295. With this depth of history and such a long list of notable master glass makers it is only fair to forgive them the quality of the glass souvenirs they sell to tourists following their strictly timetabled furnace tours!

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History: Venetian Glass (Part 2 of 3)

2011-04-06T01:00:00.003+01:00

15th & 16th Century

The Renaissance, from 1400 to 1640, had a profound affect on Italy, and Murano in particular. At the start of the 15th century it is recorded that the island of Murano now housed 3,000 glass blowers. This was in part due to another influx of fleeing craftsmen following the siege of Damacus in 1400, to be followed by the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Ottoman Turks. With this new skill base Venetian glass makers adopted another borrowed process, which had its origins in Syria. This was the ability to apply enamel and gilding to glass, which in turn influenced the creation of new dark coloured glasses to offset this externally applied decoration.

Some years prior to this discovery in 1441, the Grand Council’s declarations of 1271 were re-written and extended in the Mariegola dell’arte dei verieri da Muran. The legislation now covered all the phases of glass making - from production through to sale, as well as taxation, and the formalising of the relationship between owners, glass masters and other workers in the factories

Then, at the mid point of the century, Angelo Barovier produced what was to become known as vetro cristallo or cristallo veneziano. This was a pure, bright, completely transparent crystal glass. The impact this discovery was to have on the design and appreciation of stem glassware, goblets, dishes and bowls across Europe was unparalleled. The clarity of this glass brought its own magic but its chemical make up allowed for light and elegant designs, which up until to this point would have been near impossible to achieve with any regularity.

An early example of Venetian cristallo glass dating from 1580

As technical achievements in glass brought change so to did changes through exploration, trade and politics. By the end of the century the Portuguese, or more specifically Vasco da Gama, had circumnavigated the Cape of Good Hope reaching India and returning to Lisbon. Over time this new route had the effect of rendering ancient land based trade routes across the North African Sahara largely obsolete. The Gulf of Guinea, on the west coast of Africa, became the new commercial centre for sea borne trade, with the Portuguese, then Spanish, Dutch and English ships unloading glass beads with which to barter. Some 40 years later in 1492, Christopher Columbus discovered the New World, which in time brought trade and colonisation to the Americas.

Vasco da Gama (c 1460 to 1524) Christopher Columbus (c 1451 to 1506)

Man-made glass was a largely unknown quantity in many of the new countries that these routes would open up. When combined with the high intrinsic value that Africans and Native Americans placed on decorative items, European merchants were set to make vast profits trading glass, metal, and porcelain beads for natural resources. This would give rise, to what can only be described as a Golden Age for glass bead production across Europe, centred on Venice and Bohemia, from the early 16th century to the close of the 18th Century.

In 1592, in order to meet this new market growth, the Venetian authorities allowed the glass factories to once again expand beyond Murano to many of the other islands in the lagoon of Venice, but in turn the ban on glass makers emigrating outside of Venice was extended to cover the whole Republic. To give an indication of this uplift in production, it is known that in 1525 Venice had 24 glass works but by 1606 the register of glass bead producers alone had reached 251. By 1764 over two million pounds of beads were being made yearly in Venice alone. It has also been estimated that over 100,000 different Venetian trade bead designs were commissioned in Murano during this 200-year period, each with their own colour variations. Below you will see some examples spanning this production period.

1. Seven Layer Chevron. Late 1400s

2. Seven Layer Chevron. Late 1400s

3. A Speo. Late 1600s

4. French Ambassador. 1850s

5. Baule Face. Late 1800s

6. Black Decorated. Late 1800s

7. Cornaline D’Aleppo. Late 1800s

8. Tabular. Late 1800s

9. Large Chevron. Late 1800s

10. Square Edge Floral. Late 1800s

11. Yellow Black Swirl. Late 1800s

12. Millefiori. Late 1800s

Most bead output was destined for Africa, with ships having been loaded with beads for ballast, returning with spices, ivory, palm oil, and gold. This trade was to take on a more sinister nature as the price of African gold became less competitive when compared with gold from America. The rulers of Ghana, Benin and the Ivory Coast were therefore encouraged to supply a human cargo from the African interior to provide much needed workforces for the colonial powers.

Driven ever onwards, the 16th Century saw Venetian artisans gain even greater control over the colour and transparency of their glass, mastering a variety of new decorative production techniques. In 1527 Filippo Catani patented zanfirico or retorti filigree, which saw fine milky white canes included in transparent cristallo glass and twisted as a spiral. This was taken a stage further with latticinio in which rods of opaque glass, usually white or gold, were incorporated in the body of the clear glass vessel and worked in lattice patterns.

Venetian mould blown latticinio ewer late 16th century in vetro a retorti with gauze cable and threads and a Venetian latticino lobed drinking vessel, both late 16th Century. (Source - Christies)

Calcedonio, a method of simulating marble and other stones was also introduced. Ghiaccio, or ice glass, was developed around 1570. This being clear glass with very fine internal cracks. As the quality of glass improved diamond engraving also became possible, originating first in Prague but then quickly picked up in Venice. The glass makers of Murano had responded well to new levels of demand and were producing more elaborate designs and more technically accomplished glassware products. Venetian mirrors and chandeliers were also in great demand. Visits from crowned heads, popes and the leading businessmen of time were the norm.

However, by the end of the 16th century Venice had lost its monopoly on transparent glass, as demand for Venetian glass became such that a number of glass makers began migrating across European cities - one such glass maker of note being Jacopo Verzelini who was given licence in London in 1575 by Queen Elizabeth I.

An engraved glass goblet from 1586 produced in the London glasshouse of Jacopo Verzellini 1522 – 1606. (Source - British Museum).

Merchants who had experience of commerce with Murano also set up their own factories in France, Germany, Belgium and Austria, run by Muranese expatriates, producing their own versions of Venetian glass or à la façon de Venise, meaning in the Venetian style. They were modifying classic Venetian designs and techniques to suit local tastes and the raw materials available to them. One such individual being Wolfgang Vitl who in 1534, at the request of Emperor Ferdinand I, opened one of the earliest glasshouses producing à la façon de Venise glass in northern Europe. This workshop employed both Venetian glassblowers and local craftsmen to produce these imitations, which were larger and more robust than the originals they were copying, but ultimately less expensive than importing them from Venice. Such was the importance of this enterprise that Vitl succeeded in persuading the Emperor to grant him the sole right to produce colourless glass across the Hapsburg territories for 20 years.

17th Century

In 1630 the plague, which had been ravaging populations across Europe since its arrival in Europe in 1348, forced the Venetian authorities to relax their employment laws to ensure that they had the skills and manpower to continue to meet demand. Italy proved particularly susceptible to the plague in part due to the fact it had a different political structure to other European countries. Composed of city-states, each city was left to manage with the devastation of the plague on its own. While they often attempted to work together, the loss of life had a much greater impact on each city than it did on centrally organized nations such as France. In Venice, eighty thousand lives were lost in just seventeen months. On the 9th November, for example, five hundred and ninety-five people died. These enormous fatalities greatly affected the city and in turn glass production, shipbuilding, lace, wool and silk making. By the time that the plague had run its course, politics in Venice had been forever altered and the Republic was in decline.

To add to Venice’s political and commercial troubles, in 1662 Christopher Merrett translated a treatise called the L’Arte Vetraria written in 1612 by Antonio Neri. The subject matter was glass making, and in particular the lead glass used in Venetian enamels, glassware and imitation precious stones. This paved the way for the production of English lead crystal glass by George Ravenscroft. The son of a merchant with close ties to Venice, Ravenscroft was the first to produce clear lead crystal glassware on an industrial scale. With the cultural and financial resources necessary to revolutionise the glass trade, his work allowed England to overtake Venice as the centre of the glass industry in the 18th and 19th centuries. With the aid of Venetian glass makers, in particular is partner Seignior Da Costa, and under the auspices of the Glass Sellers Guild, Ravenscroft sought to find an alternative to Venetian cristallo. By 1673 he had overcome all production issues and was granted a protective patent. This gave rise to an intense production of glasses, cups, plates, cups, jugs and bottles all made from lead glass.

George Ravenscroft lead glass mould blown Roemer drinking glass dating from 1677. (Source - Wilfred Buckley Collection V&A)

18th & 19th Centuries

The 18th century saw the seeds of decay start to grow in Murano. Worker unrest at the closure of furnaces saw unemployment increase. As shown the decline in the importance of Venice as a trading and political power also meant it was less able to police its restrictive rules designed to protect its glass industry. Occupation by the French under Napoleon Bonaparte in 1797 and then the subsequent transfer of Venice to the Hapsburg Empire in 1814 brought the Venetian Republic to an end.

Glass production in Murano suffered enormously under Austrian rule as regulations were introduced which overtly favoured the other major glass making in the Empire, namely Bohemia. This saw Bohemian crystal, thicker, heavier and often engraved, grow in popularity to the point of rivaling Murano glass’ popularity the century before. Taxation of raw materials, limited markets, and the abolition of the Guild in 1805 saw a sharp decline in the number of furnaces - down to 24 in 1800 which further shrank to 13 by 1820. Master glass makers were now scattered across Europe and the remaining Murano producers chose to focus on the decorative beads, small bottles, and trinkets needed for overseas colonial trade.

This decline did not bottom out until the mid 19th century with the establishment of a new family glass furnace on Murano, called Fratelli Tosco in 1854. This was followed by the arrival on the island of an industrial lawyer by the name of Antonio Salviati in 1859 who set up another furnace. Fratelli initially focused on utilitarian everyday glassware, whilst Salviati focused on producing glass tiles for both the repair of Venetian mosaics and the creation of new ones. The master glassblowers who gravitated towards these two firms were among the many who had kept the glassblowing traditions alive, maintaining the art of their fathers and grandfathers, rediscovering the ancient glass making techniques, including Lorenzo Radi, who had devoted considerable efforts in the 1850s to resurrecting some of the sophisticated glass making techniques from Murano's first heyday in the 1400s. This steady reversal in fortunes was further aided by Vincenzo Zanetti who developed the Glass Museum of Murano, which in reality was more of a school which alongside the new furnaces slowly began reintroducing lost glass blowing techniques.

The output from the Salviati factory gained international recognition at both the London World Exhibition in 1862 and the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1867, in large part due to Antonio’s marketing abilities. At the London event his firm captured international attention with its prize-winning display with Salviati boldly using the occasion to present products in calcedonio glass, a medium that Radi had revived in 1856.

Salviati Calcedonio glass carafe from 1856

This recognition of artistic merit was paralleled by commercial success, and the firm soon inaugurated a sales office in London in 1868. These initiatives opened new markets for Venetian glass beyond those in the Hapsburg Empire. Eventually, Venice was freed from the Austrians in 1866 and became part of the Kingdom of Italy, and gradually the glass making industry of Murano began to expand commercially and many new innovative firms were established such as Fratelli Barovier and Francesco Ferro & Figlio.

Beyond drawing on the centuries old traditions of glass making in Murano, including the rediscovery of murine, a glass making technique from Roman times, new influences were needed to re-inspire the industry. The Murano glass workers were constrained by the fact that they had always worked within an artisan tradition rather than an artistic one. This inspiration needed began with the art nouveau movement at the end of the century, but was further fuelled and redirected by the avant garde reaction to this movement within the European art world. These new ideas and innovations from across Europe were evident for all to see at the 1895 Venice Biennale.

The official poster from the 1895 Venice Biennale

This had the effect of stretching the ideas of the glass makers, who began to form informal groups to discuss and exchange artistic ideas. One such group, associated with Cà Pesaro and the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation, included a number of artists who would bring new design ideas to the Murano glass makers. Prominent among them being Vittorio Zecchin, Napoleone Martinuzzi, Hans Stoltenberg-Lerche and Teodoro Wolf-Ferrari. The scene was now set for the 20th century to be a new Golden Age for Venetian glass.

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