Bohemian Russian blue beads

Russian blues bead necklace –Bohemia– (origin: Koforidua, Ghana)

The Bohemian glass industry has long been well known, but until the late 18th century bead making was quite limited. Even so, at the beginning of that century some workshops around Jablonec had specialized in the production of blue beads that were almost entirely exported to Russia. The reason for so much interest was that they were highly valued by the Inuit and other native peoples of Alaska, and the Russian-American Company used them to exchange them for furs, whale blubber, and other goods.
Then, when technology evolved at the beginning of the 19th century and machines that molded and cut glass appeared, bead making became cheaper and Bohemian factories took over the market. The trade beads manufactured in the Austro-Hungarian Empire then reached the African coast and by the middle of that century they had already relegated those coming from Venice to the background.
Among the hundreds of different beads that arrived then in the ports of the kingdoms of Dahomey, Benin or Ashanti, there were also those blue beads that were so appreciated in Alaska and that are now known as Russian blues.
The necklace we propose is a string of about 105 cm strung in raffia fiber with 118 beads, of which the vast majority (115) are faceted Russian blues (98) or smooth (17). Two beads are Dutch donut type and one more is a stripped bead.

Weight: 160g