Featured Millefiori ? Beads

Love to have your views on these beads please.
Sadly only half a clasp to go on but look to have some age to them. Does anything date them?
Good find?
Every colour under the sun in them.
They seem to be made up of Millefiori beads pressed together as there are some slight dips where you run your nail over a join.
Heavy and lashings of gold glitter!
Some beads such as the one with yellow have clear glass and swirls and some are completely opaque.
Thanks as ever

 

The gold glitter looks like what I've heard referred to as Aventurine Goldstone. I don't know if that's really the proper term, but you'll find plenty of listings if you use those words. It looks like some goldstone was ground up and applied in stripes around the beads.

Can't say I've ever seen goldstone on millefiori beads, but it certainly adds to the "pop" of the beads. Very pretty.

EDIT: Huh, I thought goldstone was a real stone, but apparently it's just glass.

From Wiki: "Goldstone is a type of glittering glass made in a low-oxygen reducing atmosphere. The finished product can take a smooth polish and be carved into beads, figurines, or other artifacts suitable for semiprecious stone, and in fact goldstone is often mistaken for or misrepresented as a natural material."

 

Thankyou TDC. That was very helpful when I added Aventurine into the search.
It's coming up with 1920/30s and the name Antonio Vaccari. Any thoughts as to if I'm on the right track or not?
I didn't know about Goldstone either. Just thought the designer got a bit glitter-happy!.

 

Technically, the little pieces are murrine - only when you put a bunch of them together do they turn into millefiori ("thousand flowers").

The pressed together appearance makes me think they didn't spend enough time near a torch, but maybe that's a sign of who/when/where made them (I do not know).

Aventurina/aventurine glass has been around and used in this way since forever. Or the 17th century. Something like that.

I think for dating you'll need to rely more heavily on construction of the necklace and the findings.

 

By "in this way," I mean as a top layer ribbon around the bead.

 

Well, he did, and used goldstone to get the best glitterglass.

 

There is also a version made using blue glass called, you guessed it, bluestone.

Not my field, so throwing out a couple of other terms to ask if they're relevant to these beads. Cane glass? Lamp work?

 

Murrine are slices of canes. Lampworking is glass done with a torch/flame, and yes, a torch was used with these.

 

This is a really good video that demonstrates the process of making a piece like this. The featured piece is much larger than a bead and uses a glory hole (furnace) and blow pipe, but the process is still very similar.

CAVEAT: I did not listen with sound on, but it has captions and they were fine.

 

And here is ONE way to make murrine. (Again, I did not listen with sound on.)

Still looking for a good (short) video on the bloody difficult way I know of making canes (stacking stringers), but haven't found one, yet.

 

Amazing skills!
Thankyou for posting those videos.
I picked these up today for £1. Sadly one is broken but they give an insight into their construction. Quite big 1.5-2cm per bead.
Again glass and very heavy and some age to them. Any thoughts on their origin or construction?

 

One more on the millefiori -- not on the cane making, but REALLY good pics that show bead construction.

https://venetianbeadshopblog.com/2016/08/11/making-of-a-millefiori-bead/comment-page-1/

So, for the new ones... there are rods of glass called stringers. They come in a variety of diameters down to Wow-That's-So-Skinny.

With a ball of molten glass on a mandrel, touch the tip of a fine stringer to it and that makes those little bits of color.

.5mm stringers:

 

Would they be Italian as well?

 

I'm better with technique than place, but "Venetian" is often a good guess when it comes to vintage glass beads.

 

And I can follow it up with a very confident 'Or Czech' which makes me sound as if I have a clue what I'm talking about

 

Oh yeah, I would go with Venetian for lampwork pieces and Czech for pressed/molded pieces.

If all else fails, go with German.

(someone will be along shortly to lecture us )

 

I think they scream Italian/Venetian. Think they qualify as confetti glass more than many things that turn up in a search.

Happens occasionally with cameos too, that damage gives knowledge. Who would have thought the core would have that spongy look. Imagine how heavy they would be if solid glass. Hope one of the glassies will drop by & enlighten us further.

 

I think that's only true on the part where the mandrel was and I think it's most likely from a "bead release" solution. Bead release is a thick coating applied to the mandrel and it can be the source of many a problem (too thick, too thin, not properly mixed, cured, etc).

Problems that can easily cause a cracked bead down the road.

 

I have never seen milifiori beads with adventurine drizzle.... I love them!