Orange and Green Chevron Trade Beads China Cooper Collection

This strand is not intended to be a ready-to-wear necklace. Although the strand can be worn "as is," the raffia holding it together is not durable and may break with use. For this reason, we recommend that you restring the beads before wearing them.

Venetian Chevron beads are the most beautiful, recognizable and collectable of all of the Venetian "Trade Beads." Chevrons beads are made by a multi-part process. They start with the making of the cane, then another color glass is added and then this is usually put into a 12 point star mold. This process is repeated for each additional layer on the bead. Chevron beads, also called "Rosetta" and "Star" beads, have been made Venice since the late 1400's and are still in limited production today.

The earliest chevrons were typically 7 layers of color and this production ran from the late 1400's through to the 1500's. There are also 8,9, and 10 layer beads from this period. The next production phase was in the 1600s-1700s and the layer count went down to 3 and 5 layer beads and the majority of these were heat rounded via the "a speo" method. The Venetian Chevron production with the highest volume of beads was in the late 1800's and early 1900's. These beads were usually 4 and 6 layer beads.

Chevron beads have been traded throughout the world, but most heavily in Africa. The Dutch traders were the first to bring Chevron beads to Africa in the late 1400's. There are certain tiny 7 layer Chevrons from this same period which are only found in Peru and are attributed to being distributed by Christopher Columbus.

Chevron beads are still being made in Venice today but in a limited quantity. They are also being made now in India and China but with a slightly different process. There are also Chevron bead makers in the world today designing and creating some beautiful beads. The two most famous Chevron bead makers today are Art Seymour, of the United States, and Luigi Cattelan, of Italy.

We get many questions about counting the layers in Chevrons. In the bead collecting world, the layers in Chevrons are counted from the innermost layer (around the perforation) out to the outermost layer. Layers are typically counted by the different colors. This can be tricky with the older 7-layer beads because the innermost layer is usually a transparent green.

Chevrons are very popular beads, and there are many large private collections in Africa, Europe, and America. These beads remain in very high regard in Africa and are still worn to show prestige, at special ceremonies and are often buried with the dea.

From the collection of Austin Cooper, whose collection, built over 30 years, contained superb examples of ancient beads, Venetian and other European trade beads, Bodom, Akosu, and Kiffa beads, Jatim and other rare Asian beads.  Austin had a superb eye, and Africa Direct is proud to be able to offer his beads, his legacy, many of which are of a quality rarely available today.

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