MILLEFIORI GLASS

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 109, 1 February 1930, Page 20

MILLEFIORI GLASS

“THE THOUSAND-FLOWERED” Most people know the glass letterweights popular in the Victorian era, ana agree that the best of them are. those in “Millefiori.” A smooth rounded mass of limpid glass encloses a design built of brightly coloured mosaics, reminiscent of a partere of flowers,’or in some cases the corals and sea anemones submerged in a tidal pool (says the “Queen”). The standard of taste at that time has been often impugned, but here it deserves commendation, for the paper-weights which have survived are delightful, and though commonest in this form,. the millefiori glass is occasionally seen in casters, ink bottles, knobs, and scent bottle stoppers. Manufactured at almost every period in the heydey of Venetian glass, reproduced in tbe best time of -Bohemian glass, brought to a fine art in France, and copied with varying degrees of success in some of the English glass works, miHefiori work can claim a classic origin, for it was evolved in Egypt, and was certainly being made by the Romans in early Christian days. Some of these ancient pieces now in existence are gems., or bowls made in imitation of semi-precious stones, such as the agate. So the art has its xoots deep in tbe past, though the greater glory of colour and perfection of form were to come later. The examnles most often seen are those containing coloured geometrically arranged “florets,” which, though they do not as a rule imitate real blossoms, yet.suggest them wonderfully. Paper-weights displaying fruit are rarer, and both fruit and flowers are sometimes accompanied by butterflies' and moths. As to the provenance of such articles, the most desirable of which now seem to come from French sources, the dealers tell us very little, and students of the. craft are not always much wiser, but this is one of the by-paths of collecting which may be cheerfully pursued without giving chapter and verse for every acquisition.

TANKER MASTER’S WIFE Ideas gained in seven brief peeps at Australia and New Iflea'.and are all the impression Mrs. R. B. Armstrong, wife of Captain Armstrong, the only woman on board the giant oil tanker Australia,' will carry back to America next month. On Sunday the vessel arrived at Auckland from Sydney, and to-day she will arrive at Wellington. Four ports were worked on the Australian coast, and the stay at each was one day, like a dash by air from Fremantle, with big hops between each stop. So Mrs. Armstrong has to make the most of a few hours in port. She has contrived to. form an impression without loss of time, and makes use of a motor-car whenever possible to have a run around the cities visited by the ship. She frankly admits that the method has its drawbacks, but she has to make the most of a programme that was so finely adjusted as to give her only 24 hours or less at each port of call. At Fremantle, Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney, Mrs. Armstrong had the pleasure, she said, of seeing Australia for the first time, and when leaving each port she had the disappointment which she will experience again to-morrow as the time of the vessel’s departlire from Wellington draws near. The voyage of three mouths, she explained, included a long run out from the Pacific Coast, and an equally Jong run back, but she enjoyed the’novelty of life at sea.