Loose Beads Fashion
Venice, the sixteenth century. A glassmaker draws a cane of millefiori, and a ship is already waiting at the quay.
Loose beads in glass, stone, amber, bone, brass and silver were the raw material of jewelry across West Africa, the Himalaya, India and Europe. Venetian millefiori and Dutch and Bohemian glass sailed to West Africa as trade currency, to be restrung by the Dogon and the Fulani. Baltic amber, carried along the Amber Road since prehistory, became prized in Fulani coiffures.
Heaped in a porcelain bowl, old beads read as a small landscape of color.
Somebody else’s money, now yours to string.
In the collection now: Indian Tipu Sultan Coin, 1 Paise, Elephant Motif, Italian Strand of Rubrum Coral, and Chinese Jade Toggle Bead.
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