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(Created December 21, 2003)
Author's Note: If anyone out there knows how filled with millefiori that beads from the Islamic periods actually are, then it can be clearly noted that my beads do not enough mosaic pieces.
The primary reason for this is that I was being stingy with the millefiori that I had made. I wanted to make a whole necklace of mosaic glass beads with my handmade millefiori but I didn't have a lot of it. As a result, I did not put enough on each bead.
Whenever I try this again, I am planning on being more liberal with the mosaic glass because I can always make more. Chalk it up to inexperience.
Mosaic glass, also known as millefiore glass, was invented in Mesopotamia about 1500 BC. The technique has been used and refined throughout history. The Islamic Era, 700 AD to 1400 AD, was very fond of mosaic gass beads. The technique of mosaic glass developed as a means to fill the demand for detailed eye beads. When making mosaic glass, the glassworker uses different colored glass rods to form a new rod, called millefiore cane. The result is a rod which has an imbedded design appearing in the cross-section as the millefiore cane is cut into sections.
Until the development of mosaic glass, lampworking was the most prevalent method of producing glass beads. Lampworking involves the winding of molten glass around a metallic wire. As a result, only one bead can be made at a time and each bead was made and decorated individually. The entire process was very labor intensive. By applying a small cut of mosaic glass to a bead, greater detail could be achieved with less time and effort. Mosaic glass also had the ability to produce a more uniform bead than simple lampworking because they could be made in groups. Until this point, eye beads were formed by placing concentric dots of contrasting color on the bead surface. With the use of mosaic glass, many 'eyes' could be made by cutting one rod of millefiore cane into sections.
The ability to produce more detailed eye beads in a shorter amount of time was quite valued because eye beads were thought to ward off the effects of the evil eye. Numerous cultures throughout the ages thought that direct eye contact with afflicted humans, malicious spirits, or some deities could infect the viewer with illness, harm, or evil emotions. Eye beads, more than any other bead style, are seen across a vast array of cultures and have been worn for over 5,000 years. Because glass beads were expensive to produce, many people wore them as a display of wealth. As the techniques for making mosaic glass advanced, the patterns became increasingly more complex and technical. With the development of drawn glass techniques (a molten glass tube is pulled and then cut into many different beads), the patterns became increasingly more complex and technical. The famous mosaic face beads made during the Roman Period can be considered the apex of this technique.
The Romans made mosaic glass by dipping individual glass rods into molten glass vats of alternating colors. The Venetians made superior mosaic glass by using drawn techniques developed in the 1400s. Because I do not have the technological capabilities of the Romans or the Venetians, I made mosaic glass using a lampworking technique. Using this technique, a glass rod is heated and then wrapped with melted glass of another rod. The small outer dots are formed by laying a stripe of a different colored stringer around the encased rod. The final product is formed by pulling the heated glass into a longer and thinner rod, similar to drawn glass. After the pulled cane cools, it is cut into smaller sections and applied to a molten bead to produce the eye decorations.
Allen, James D. Magical Ancient Beads. Singapore: Times Editions Pte Ltd, 1998
Dubin, Lois Sherr. The History of Beads: From 30,000 BC to the Present (Concise Edition). New York: Abradale, 1987.
Jenkins, Cindy. Making Glass Beads. Asheville, Lark Books, 1997.
(Copyright 2003-2004, Katherine Estep Stephenson)