Some glass beads I saw in a museum in Dublin this year

Some amber beads same museum in Dublin

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I posted this necklace recently at my FaceBook page. JDA.

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Good Idea. This necklace is from Myanmar. Chinese beads I assume(27x13mm for the white bead). Any idea about age anyone?

The second one are good silver flowercoins made into a necklace, also Myanmar. Middle one is 46x42mm.

The Chinese, essentially, manufactured plain furnace-wound glass beads from the Late Ming through the Qing Dynasties—and probably the greatest numbers were made late in that time, well into the 20th C. This spans about 400 years. Prior to that period, the Chinese did not value glass per se, and did not have conventional hot-working factories (with some exceptions, perhaps). Glass was mainly worked as though it were stone, via lapidary practices (being grinded, cut, polished, and drilled).

Then, around the times of German and then Japanese occupations (in the region of Boshan), the situation changed radically, because cane and element drawing were introduced; and the approach of ornament-making via lampworking was established—making the mass manufacture of beads possible, and including impressive works such as hot-pinched overlay beads, millefiori meads, and several others.

So your beads are probably late Qing, or even post-Qing, but are probably not from Boshan. They would be more like what are called "Canton" beads (formerly called "Peking glass" beads).

I don't know how to date flower-money (though I own a specimen).

Jamey

Another necklace, this time with silver handmade beads and stone beads(middle one diam 20mm) from the Chin people also Myanmar.

Second stone necklace is from Rakhine state. Middle bead is 32x19mm

First some beads from Roumenia 250-175 BC from a local gallo-roman museum in Belgium.

Second from an ancient glass exhition in Leiden a nice collection of eye beads.

I found this 36 mm diameter short oblate phenolic resin bead in GREEN swirled with yellow - very unusual since all the other beads I've seen in this size & shape are the amber yellow ones from the African trade.

I've always wanted a nice example of a Tuareg khomessa but most are quite large. I found this sweet one that's only 1.7" (43 mm) wide.

I can't get enough of lime green Venetians and fancy elbows.

Antique "Liberty" necklace and a wonderful beaded matching murine necklace with a murine that I have not seen before.

Venetian beaded foil necklace and a Czech beaded foil necklace.

1) A strand of mixed Venetians

2) A strand of translucent blue beads known as "Aggrey" or "Koli"

3) A strand of Java glass fish

4) Carved turquoise frog, dragon, and turtle beads

Some of one of my favorite types of Venetians.

Lots of beautiful beads. Thanks, everyone, for showing them.

I'm not sure how I feel about this necklace. Most of my old Chinese friends are disdainful of the Qing dynasty and its products, though that's where the market is rocketing up. They see it as unChinese with its Manchu values, tastes and regulations. Personally, I love Qing monochrome porcelain, but that's about it. But I've always been intrigued by these court necklaces and their intricacies, so when the opportunity came to get this one, I fell for it. It's from a good old Swiss collection.

One of the things that strikes me first is just how well made and matched the beads are - 108 dark, glowing carnelian, 30+4 jadeite, 4 mounted amethyst pendants, and 1 nephrite. It comes with a really beautiful black and gold lacquer box (cinnabar on the inside). The box has a Kangxi mark, but I imagine it's later, nineteenth century.

Happy Christmas to everyone.

Will

Hard to believe the modern day Chinese are not interested in the superb artwork & designs of their past...

Thanks, Rosanna. I'm glad you like it. I've always liked amethyst, and in Chinese feng shui it's traditionally valued for its health-giving, balance-restoring properties. Supposedly it helps to focus the mind in meditation, and it's quite widely believed to counteract stress and insomnia. Each to her/his own remedy, I guess.

But I think I've given the wrong impression about Chinese taste. Sorry! The older Chinese friends who dismiss pretty much everything from the Qing dynasty do so because they see the high points of Chinese culture as having been in earlier periods, the Song dynasty especially, and Tang and Han. By contrast, the younger generation seem to value everything from the Qing dynasty with its ostentation and bling - porcelain most of all, but Sino-Tibetan gilt bronzes and sometimes court necklaces as well. One of these, a freshwater pearl and turquoise necklace that may have been worn by the Yongzheng emperor in the early eighteenth century sold at Sotheby's in Hong Kong for about US$8.7 million. Anything with an imperial association is guaranteed to reach an astronomic price in China - which is an amusing contradiction in a society that still insists on calling itself communist!

Cheers,

Will

Sadly this court necklace is new. Made to look old. Fairly cheap in Beijing and Bangkok markets. They do small have Mala s to.

Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but I try not to buy things without being fairly sure of them. Having lived at one time in China for ten years, I know how clever the fakers can be (everything from ancient jade to Bordeaux wine!). Just in the past year, I've seen the copies that are available in Beijing and Bangkok for myself, and yes, they are sometimes quite good, but both the beads and the stringing material on this example show the subtle signs of age and wear that you don't find on the fakes. The same is true of the lacquer box.

The necklace is certainly not recent, because it was in the same collection for many years before it came on the market. And the friends I asked for an opinion about it before I decided to buy it, include one of the most respected curators of Asian art at the Met in NewYork and a couple of people from Sotheby's. None of that is ever foolproof, of course. Fakes can still slip by, but I'd certainly stack it up against someone who has only seen a medium quality pic online before making a sweeping generalization.

Cheers,

Will

Beautiful! The deep red, ochre and purple are a gorgeous color combination.

Do you think the bead caps were once covered with tian tsui kingfisher feathers? In case you might be interested, here's an interesting blog entry on the conservation of a tian tsui head piece by the National Museums Scotland: https://blog.nms.ac.uk/2018/08/02/phoenixes-in-flight-conservation-of-a-chinese-kingfisher-hair-piece/

Enlarged too much (so its slightly out of focus), but the enlargement nonetheless gives a sense of the detail.

Hi JRJ,

Thanks for your comments and your suggestion - that the metal mounts (or caps) on the amethyst pendants may originally have been covered with kingfisher feathers. Certainly, i've seen examples of chaozhu where that was the case. But as I remember them the area covered by the feathers was somewhat wider and more flat than any surface available for them here. Also, the white metal (low-grade silver) on this necklace is gilt all over and that seems odd to me if it was intended afterwards to have feathers stuck on top of it. But I'll continue to keep the idea in mind. And thank you too for the link to the article about the conserved hair decoration that's now in Perth - fascinating!

Cheers,

Will

Hi again, JRJ,

As I said before, I wouldn't rule out the possibility, but it still seems unlikely. The metal work on the necklace mounts seems to me to be complete in itself without any sense that additional decorative elements have been lost. One of the attractions of the court necklaces is how restrained they are - constrained really by the requirements and regulations that defined the genre from the outset. They didn't leave much room for the lavish excesses of a lot of other Qing paraphernalia.

Cheers,

Will

Hello to the group

Here are 2 very close to same size in length and diameter from Myanmar

For us carnelian lovers I love the glow. Just between 5 1/8 and 5 1/4

I do not know how the name of this shape?? help please

4 sided rectangle tapering to the ends. Nice banding. From Thailand

better pictures later

one bow bead very thin 86mm X 13mm x 6mm

other bead is 81mm x 8mm x 9mm

61 mm

73 mm

61 mm

58 mm

more to follow tomorrow

This is currently the longest agate bead in my
collection at 150mm x 12 mm diameter
from Cambodia

does anyone in our group have a larger one or know of a larger one??

Please post and please advise
sincerely from Walter Anderson

Hello to the group

a few more I acquired during the last year

These all have a yellow in color and yellow hued

Largest is 33 mm long and the smallest is 18mm

more to come later

more pictures later

I wonder about age and origin?

2020! Once ever!

Wow, very nice looking bead. What a find
From walter

vraiment très chouette - very nice owl