Hi Stefany,

It is interesting for me to see the "Chinese millefiori bead" currently being produced in Boshan. To me, there is a big difference between these and the old ones.

Also, thank you for sending your kind gift to me via Rosanna. It would have been nice to see you and all the beads and wonderful bead collectors in Tucson.

Cheers,
Fred

not millefiori technique, but how exactly were they done....?
The older beads as Fred shows display a spiral effect in the insert pattern.
Looking at my pink ones and other newish ones, the inserts show a more concentric pattern. We have discussed this in years past, but I'm foggy as to where the conversation went.

Or perhaps drawn thinner, then sliced.

Not molded canes, as in Venice, in other words.

Would have to have been rolled, and then maybe reheated and drawn further, of course, no mold is evident.
The new ones, being concentric, are almost more mysterious....

Thank you for posting these, Stephany and Frederick. Frederick, could you provide an age range for your beads?

I believe the older ones may be as old as the 1920's. What is the best name choice for these beads?

Just Fred

Some of you may enjoy looking for the difference and sharing your observations.

Just Fred

I wish I knew more about these beads; I wish there was more written about them, but the information seems very sparse and contradictory. For instance, some writers see the Japanese occupation as being the high point of production; most recently I read that in fact a lot of factories closed down at that time. One of the problems is that Boshan produced a lot of the ordinary household glass for North China and beads were always a sideline.

What I find attractive about the earlier beads is that they are often quite rough and spontaneous in their feel - a sort of Abstract Expressionist energy about them, that's very different from the rest of Qing and Republic-era glass.

Thanks for showing those lovely examples, Fred.

W.

Chinese accounts of both Boshan and the Beijing cloisonne workshops are pretty consistent about the devastation, no doubt aggravated by World War II and the Chinese civil war. I wonder if the Japanese businesses that had been investing and trying to develop industries such as Boshan since the early 1900s were adversely affected by the wreckage and disruption their military caused? Or were they collaborators?

The brass box finial I posted about earlier today seems to indicate that these Boshan millefiori beads were being produced before the 1920s (at which time apparently U.S. tariff amendments than required the words "Made in" to precede the country of origin mark on imported items.