People have rendered the human form, and its various parts since the original creation of art (and beads), via several techniques—not the least of which are painting and sculpture.

The sculpted manufacture of head and faces evolved into the glass-arts of the Eastern Mediterranean by 500 BCE (+ or -), and were displaced by millefiori images just a few centuries later. Egyptian canes from the Roman Period represent the best efforts to depict humans and gods pictorially, though the beads of that time are not their best efforts—which can be found in larger canes, supposedly used in revetments (architectural features mounted on walls).

Venetians were exposed to Roman Period glassworks ate at least two critical times—these being the mid-15th C., when they devised their own versions of mosaic-glass works (and invented rosetta beads, as well as millefiori); and in the mid-19th C. when they revived this work in-earnest (though it had not entirely disappeared, in the meantime).

I think it's possible that Franchini was inspired by Roman Period glassworks, and possibly even beads—but I don't recall that this was frankly stated. But glass historians say there was a lot of hubbub at Venice when ancient mosaic-glass was recovered in Rome, and shown to Venetians—who immediately wanted to try their hands at making similar products. So, at both times, these inspirational events changed the nature of glassworking at Venice, and created new artistic paradigms.

I'm not here to say say that the work of people who came soon after Franchini are terrible (!).

Far from it. My point has been merely to say that these works are inferior to the work of Franchini—and that it is visually possible to SEE that, and to distinguish between them. And this helps people understand these issues, and to not be fooled into accepting and/or buying a later inferior piece as a "Franchini" piece. As an artist, I also share my opinion that most of the pieces created after his death—whether they use his canes, or if they use later simpler canes, are inferior pieces—IN AN ART SENSE. However, anyone who likes these items, likes them. But their increase in prestige and value, that is based upon a false notion that these were made by Franchini, is mistaken and misguided.

From the 1960s into the '70s, Roman Period mosaic-glass (or millefiori) face beads became very prestigious items to own. Scientific American did a great pictorial and well-researched article on them—as did Robert Liu when he began publishing The Bead Journal. I know for a fact that these beads were rare and not easily acquired—and people were astounded that they might cost as much as $150. each (!). Now, the routine price for such beads varies between $3,000 and $5,000 each. and this has come about because of the cultivated popularity of the genre, as well as avid searching (rifling?) through antiquities to find and sell them.

By the 1980s, a new shift in glassworking began to occur, when studio artists took up beadmaking, and began to replicate the products of antiquity, as well as arty modern beads (by which I mean the products of Venice and Czechoslovakia). And it was inevitable that these artisans would do exactly what everyone else in this field had done before them. They COPIED beads as fast as they could master the technology. And then, people who studied with these artists went out and did the same thing—and a movement was born. By 1993, mosaic-glass face beads had been made, and the Society of Glass Beadmakers was established. (I'm thinking of Brian Kirkvliet first, followed by Loren Stump.) But these people are much more likely to have copied Roman Period glass, rather than to have had any exposure to and inspiration from Franchini. But it was still a few years away that anyone was successful in evolving away from cartoony faces, and toward making actual portraits. Isis Ray has been very successful at making reproductions of Roman Period Egyptian plaques (the faces that are more complicated than those found on beads). And lately, an artist in Berkeley, CA has done remarkable work—her name being Emiko Sawamoto—whose work so impressed me that I asked her to participate at the IBBC in Istanbul in 2007. There are others, of course, but I don't know that anyone has equaled, let alone surpassed, Franchini, yet.

Nevertheless, MANY new mosaic-glass pictorial pieces surpass the work that I characterize as being derivative of Franchini's work—the pieces made soon after his death, that are found on "perfume bottles" and the like (just as Franchini's canes were used after his death), that were made BECAUSE his work remained in the public eye, or was brought to the attention of the public again.

And that's just my opinion.

Jamey