Venetian chevron beads various colors

Venetian chevron necklace (origin: Koforidua, Ghana)

Unlike mosaic beads, whose origin is lost in the mists of time, chevrons and other stretched cane beads had their origin in a workshop on the island of Murano, where the master glassmaker Margherita Barovier had the good taste to imagine them back in the year 1480. When five years later the Portuguese built the Castelo da Mina (Ghana), the Akan miners of the Gold Coast (present-day Ghana) did not hesitate to accept the beautiful seven-faceted blue beads arrived from Venice as payment for their precious metals.
From then until 1950 million chevrons of seven, six or four facets would leave the island of Murano bound for African ports. After that year, the Venetian kilns would take another direction and chevrons would cease to be the prime donne of the Italian glass industry.

The necklace we present consists of 181 four-layer stretched cane beads (17 mm in length; 14 mm in Ø), of which 175 are chevrons made in Murano while the remaining six come from Holland (Dutch striped). The beads are threaded on a 1 meter raffia cord.

Weight: 110g