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ARTE AFRICANA
 

 

 

 

 

              Trade beads

 

 

 

 

 

3 antiche murrine veneziane. Trade beads

Età approssimativa: 1820-1900

Queste antiche perle hanno tracce d'uso e micro scheggiature.


 

Questo perle di vetro di origine veneziana, sono state usata dai commercianti europei dell´epoca, come merce di  scambio in Africa.


Avevano il valore del denaro, ma
spesso, per la popolazione africana , avevano anche un valore spirituale.

 

 

Grazie Per la vostra visita

 

 

 

3 Old venetian  Glass trade beads.

 

Approximate age: 1820 ,1900

 

This ancient beads have traces of use and same little cracks.

 

This tradebeads from european origin were traded in the last centuries to Africa and used to change items.

They had the value of money , but sometimes for the African population they had even spiritual value.

 

Thanks for your visit

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                                                                             Early Bead History:

The history of beads dates as far back as 40,000 years ago, and have been made by every culture since then. Egyptians were making glass beads by 1365 B.C., while several thousand-year old glass factories in Lebanon are still in production. Evidence that China has been making and exporting glass beads for centuries has been revealed in archaeology sites. Glass and Brass beads have been found in burial sites of many cultures: Egyptian tombs, Roman catacombs, Saxon, African, and American Indian. 

Prior to European contact, beads in North America were made from  gold, jade, bone, the blue-green stone turquoise, and hand polished shell beads. Anasazi, Fremont, and other Southwestern Pueblo people traded turquoise throughout the Southwest and into Mexico. Marine shells from the Pacific coast were traded to the Southwest Indians and from the Atlantic coast and the gulf of Mexico to the Mound Builders of the Mississippi River valleys.

                                                                            Venetian Trade Beads:

A major source of glass beads that would be used in the fur trade was Venice, Italy. Venetians held a near monopoly on the bead industry for nearly 600 years.  A guild of Venetian glass makers existed in 1224 A. D.. Around 1291, a large portion of the Venetian glass industry moved to Murano, an island north of Venice; city fathers feared an accident with one of the glass furnaces could destroy the city.

For over two hundred years, beads were made in Murano by a method known as "winding." With this method, beads were made individually by drawing a molten glob of glass out of the furnace and winding it around an iron rod. Glass of another color could then be added, or the bead could be decorated with a design. Coloring agents were added to the molten glass: cobalt made blue; copper produced green; tin made a milky white; and gold resulted in red. Wound beads from a master glassmaker were so perfect that it was hard to find a seam where the different molten glasses merged.

Another method was blown glass beads. Using this method, a glob of molten glass was removed from the furnace and the desired shape obtained by blowing through a glass tube—much the same way glass vases are made.

The glass industry was able to keep up with demand using these two methods until the mid- to late 1400’s. Once European countries started sending ships around the world, ship captains and explorers carried beads made of glass, porcelain, and metal to use as gifts, or for the fur trade. The slow method of winding beads could not keep up with this new demand.

Venetians by around 1490 started to make beads from tubes of drawn glass; Egyptians may have used this process centuries before. With this procedure, a master glassmaker took a glob of molten glass from the furnace and formed a cylinder. After working the cylinder into the desired shape, he attached a rod to the cylinder. An assistant would take the rod and run down a long corridor before the glass had a chance to cool. This drawn glass tube was about one hundred and twenty meters long. The length of the tube and the amount of glass used determined the size of the beads. Once the tubes cooled, they were cut into meter long pieces. These pieces were cut into beads of various sizes. The cut beads were placed in a large metal drum containing lime, carbonate, sand, carbon, and water. While the metal drum turned, heat was applied to the outside causing the rough-cut edges to be smoothed. After the beads were smooth, they were cleaned and then placed in a sack of fermented bran and vigorously shaken to polish them.  The monochrome glass beads of today are not much different from those made five hundred years ago.

By the 1500’s, the demand for glass beads had grown to the point that Venetians were sending drawn glass tubes to Bohemia. There the glass tubes were broken into beads, polished, and sent back to Venice. The Bohemians (Czechoslovakia) had been making glassware, vases, and cups since the twelfth century. 

With an abundance of willing workers, quartz for the silicon base of glass, and potash from wood-burning furnaces, Bohemia sent men to work in the glass factories of Murano. The knowledge these men brought back on how to make the drawn glass tubes turned Bohemia into a major producer of glass beads.  By the mid-eighteen hundreds, Bohemia was producing more glass beads than the factories in Murano.  

 

 

                                                                                       

                                                                                               

                                                                                                                        

Shipping

The shipping costs of the objects from Germany includes packing and insurance up to 500 euro and tracking number, if it is send with DHL Germany . The pack will be posted within 24 hours of payment, with a usual eventual arrival of 4 to 6 working days.

Objects of little size to 2 kilograms can be send also with priority mail international . This will take 5-10 days.

We pack very carefully .

See also :Conditions of sale and shipping costs

Guaranted

All objects are  as described .If it is not, you get back your moeney 100%.     

Email whit any questions , additional information , or more pictures send  to : africanart-gallery@t-online.de

 

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                                                                                                                                                     shipping cost for this

        
 shipping cost for this item         dhl express

shipping + insurance

       priority mail        combined shipping

      every  additional item

Germany                                                2 Euro
Europe           1,75 Euro                            2 Euro
U.S.A.          1,75 Euro                    5 Euro
worldwide          1,75 Euro                    5 Euro


 

 

 

 

 


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