Handmade beads from Venice don’t come cheap but you do get what you pay for.  the Venetian bead makers pick the most vibrant glass and use real silver and gold foils to wrap the cores in. We are delighted to have our full range of Venetian glass beads back in stock even though it has taken a while for them to arrive, they are well worth the wait.

Most of the beads are made on Murano, the famous Island of glassmakers but some of ours are actually made in Venice itself in a tiny glass works by a quiet quayside. Their workshop is bursting with brightly coloured canes and shelves stuffed full of beads, moulds and tools.  The history of beadmaking in Venice dates from the time of Marco Polo when he returned from his journeys with  beads from Asia. Local artisians used their glass making skills to reproduce these precious stones for jewellery making and trade.
In Venice and Murano,  bead production has historically been  womens’ work.During the 1930s there were as many as 30 companies making the seed beads, employing hundreds of women.