Collecting old Murano Glass beads

I knew about this relative in Venice whose Mother designed and manufactured necklaces for the trade from 1950 to 1970. When she died he inherited thousands of beads. When I first saw them, I was disappointed because they did not have the typical embedded gold and silver foil or flowers. I purchased some red beads because I knew red is hard to find and they were a lovely graceful oval shape. I would buy a small quantity each year, but they were not important to my design.

Finally I realized the colors, the textures, the shapes are unique. In the picture above you can see textures that look like granulated sugar and satin, and you can tell the human hand has touched them because the shapes are not perfect. They span many eras from the early 1900's to the modern movement.

Now I eagerly travel to Venice to collect beads . I stay in a beautiful room in the family palazzo overlooking roofs and the Venice Lagoon.. The linens on the bed are thick and starched and on the dresser is are multi colored old Murano glass perfume bottles and the Proseco is delicious .

You can see how Andrea and I combined these beads with Andreas' old African bead collection at Adner-Bergart.com