Glass Beads

small, round or many-sided beads made from transparent or colored glass (less frequently, from metal), with holes for threading.

Necklaces were plaited and parts of clothing were woven from strings of glass beads as far back as ancient Egypt. Venice, which took the secret of glass bead production from Byzantium in the tenth century, supplied beads to many countries of the world. In the middle of the 18th century, M. V. Lomonsov began the production of Russian glass beads. The enamel luster and shimmering of the grainy surface of glass beads give particular liveliness to the rich gradations of color in handbags, tobacco pouches, and covers (for vessels, chibouks, and walking sticks) woven out of glass beads, as well as in many thematic embroidery panels (with milk-white or opalescent backgrounds in the 18th century and turquoise or lilac backgrounds in the first half of the 19th century). After the 1860’s, the art of embroidering with glass beads developed only in the folk crafts, which mastered it in the mid-19th century.