Vintage Art Deco Venetian wedding cake Fiorato glass white, gold, blue, pink and red hand made large bead choker necklace

Absolutely stunning white, gold, pink, red and blue Venetian wedding cake glass bead necklace. Beautiful round shaped large glass handcrafted beads in milk white with 'wedding cake' style floral embellishments. This is a lovely example of the older, more elaborate large beads in this style.

The beads are securely strung with really pretty topaz orange coloured glass spacer beads and gold tone filigree bead caps. The necklace has a length of about 18 inches and securely fastens with an antique gold tone screw barrel clasp.

The necklace is in very good vintage condition - no chips or cracks to these delicate and very old beads.

Wedding cake beads known as Fiorato (decorated with glass overlays featuring roses, swirls and dots) and Venetian foil beads (with fusion of colour, gold and silver foil) are two of the kinds of beads made using the lamp-work method.

The lamp-work method is the most time-consuming method of glass bead-making, as each bead must be formed individually. Using a torch for heat, Murano glass rods and tubes are heated to a molten state and wrapped around a metal rod until the desired shape is achieved. Several layers of different coloured glass, as well as gold and silver leaf, are used to produce the desired effect. After the bead is slowly cooled, it is removed from the rod, resulting in a hole for eventual stringing as jewellery.