Sterling Silver and Glass Beads

Swish - Online in South Africa and at Somerset Mall, Somerset West, Cape Town

The techniques used to make our Venetian Glass beads were brought to Venice by Byzantine glass workers, fleeing Constantinople after their defeat in the 4th crusade. The artists were confined to the island of Murano ( due to the fire risk from their kilns) and Murano became the centre of excellence for artistic glassware, dominating the market for several hundred years.

Due to the hand-crafted nature of the production, every piece is unique and has its own story to tell. The very first pattern was created around the end of the 15th Century by the daughter of a famous glass worker. The molten glass rod was pressed into a metal mould to make it into a star shaped rod. This in turn was fired in a cylindrical mould packed with glass powder of a different colour. This restored the cylindrical shape, with the pattern embedded in the centre.

Different patterns quickly followed, culminating in the petal shaped designs that today characterise Murano Venetian glass.

The Murano glass industry managed to survive stiff taxes imposed by Emperor Napoleon, and pass on the glass making skills to successive generations – although not without the majority of kilns having to close. During the political distractions of the early 19th century, the glass workers were able to rebuild their industry, adding pendants and other silver jewellery to their repertoire.

Today at Swish we have a very large collection of glass beads with sterling silver cores that would not exist without the sweat, tears and artistry of the Murano glass makers stemming way back to the 4th century.