First, a quick overview. Glass-beadmaking at Holland is thought to have been initiated by about 1590. So, close to the beginning of the 17th century. Prior to that time, the Dutch had been receiving Venetian (and perhaps other) beads, and had transported them via shipping, to the areas where they had established commercial relations (no doubt continuing to expand the areas of these contacts and exchanges). In the 17th C., it is strongly established that Western Europeans wanted to compete with Venice in the manufacture of glass beads for export. In addition to Holland, Flanders and England established glasshouses for beadmaking.

The documents that still exist are not always entirely clear. Partly because the language used does not necessarily easily translate into terms we can identify and understand. (Of course, we STILL have these problems, a lot, even today.) But certain actions indicate the following interpretation of history. Then I will add my thoughts about the ramifications of past expositions on Dutch glass-beadmaking, to clarify my position.

It seems very likely that the first beads the Dutch made were probably simple furnace-wound beads. Beads that do not require a complicated skill-set, but might be made almost anywhere (presuming that the requisites of glassmaking and working are understood). We can suppose that these beads were not exciting, and not considered very desirable—because after a very short time, it is recorded, the Dutch brought in a Venetian Master, to make and teach the making of Venetian-style beads. These were DRAWN beads, made from simple or complex preformed canes, finished various ways. Consequently, the Dutch glassworkers reached critical mass very quickly, and from a humble beginning were soon equipped to make beads that competed with Venetian products—so much so that hardly anyone can distinguish one from the other, among beads of that time (based upon my personal experience of viewing these beads in Holland, from factory sites and refuse). The Dutch made these fancy drawn beads, including rosetta beads (usually finished a-speo) for about 100 years.

In the 18th C., it seems the fashion for making drawn beads changed, and the Dutch glassworks took a step backwards. They returned to making large furnace-wound beads, in a limited color palate—this being blue (of various tones), white (including girasol dichroic glass), brown (the color of root beer or coffee, verging on orange and yellow—colors that might be considered to imitate amber), and occasionally violet. These large crude beads were made from glasses that were not well-formulated, suggesting that this may have been an entirely new industry, not connected to the previous Venetian-trained beadmaking. The result of using this glass is that the beads, when they are recovered in recent times, are more radically decayed than the glass of the previous beads. This falsely suggests these beads are OLDER than 17th C. beads. And, in fact, when they are recovered in certain parts of the world, they are routinely mistaken for “ancient” beads. (I have written about this phenomenon a number of times.)

W.G.N. van der Sleen was a Dutch chemist, who had a great interest in glass-beadmaking in his homeland. In the late 1960s, he composed a book, A Handbook on Beads, that attempted to describe the scope of Dutch beadmaking, and also to talk about beads world-wide. He used Horace Beck’s earlier work (from the 1920s and ‘30s) as a stepping stone, going so far as to use some of Beck’s illustrations and terminology. In the 1970s, van der Sleen’s book became avidly used by many bead-sellers and collectors here in the US, when a pirated edition was published and distributed out of Pennsylvania. A thorough bead historian, such as myself, has read both of the European editions, and the American edition. You have to—because the American edition has different page numbers—and in many places the Index doesn’t make any sense—it being impossible to find the information on the pages cited. Van der Sleen’s book is an earnest attempt at writing something on beads for the next generation after Beck. However, like Beck’s work, it is not faultless, and is severely in need of revision. I realized this the first time I read his book in about 1973 or ’74.

One of the main problems with vdS’s account of Dutch beadmaking is that he thought the large furnace-wound beads were logically earlier than the drawn beads. While it is probably abstractly true that this may have occurred, the early wound beads have not been identified. The large crude wound furnace beads, that are typically considered to be Dutch (though the evidence remains merely scanty and suggestive!), are from AFTER the time of drawn beadmaking at Holland—as I have suggested above—and are most likely early 18th C. beads.

Added to this, once vdS’s book became popular, it engendered MANY instances of mistaken identity, based on misinterpretations of what vdS said. Quite a few Venetian rosetta and chevron beads have been sold as “Dutch.” Most “gooseberry” beads are not that, but represent different later editions of somewhat similar appearance. He also promoted the mistaken idea that small red-over-green drawn beads (“galet rouge” or “green-heart” beads) had been previously made in India—even though his international collection does not include any such beads (!). And many plain wound beads are thought to be considerably earlier than they are, and to be “Dutch” when they are not. I wish I had a bead for every time I have had to say or write “if you’ve seen one wound bead, you’ve seen them all”—by which I mean that plain simple wound beads are often difficult to distinguish from one another. Even now, we often cannot distinguish between certain Chinese beads and similar-looking European beads (the so-called “padre” beads and “early blues,” respectively from the Southwest and Northwest, from less than 200 years ago).

Having lobbied to take more care in identifying beads, and to not presuming a “Dutch” origin where its not warranted (since 1974), I eventually made it to Holland (1991 and 1992), where I looked at locally-recovered beads, for the specific determination of whether it were visually possible to distinguish between Venetian and Dutch specimens (it was not!), and (in 2004) the later larger wound beads (the problem being that 19th and 20th C. German beads are routinely thought to be “17th C. Dutch beads”). I have determined that none of the beads recovered in Holland look like the Central European beads that I believe are mostly German and postdate Holland’s beadmaking. These are visually distinct from the Dutch beads. But there are SO MANY plain wound beads..., and not all questions of technique and origin are answered, yet.

I will leave this discussion with a look at a section of Lois Dubin’s Bead Chart, showing the beads she identified as coming from Holland in the 17th century. And I’ll comment upon this in the next installment. The link posted here refers back to a discussion of a few days ago, in which I show a selection of the larger furnace-wound beads recovered in Holland.

So, more later.

Jamey