These glass beads are of the kind known as ‘trade’, ‘aggry’ or, sometimes, ‘slave’ beads. They are usually associated with West Africa but were originally created in Europe, particularly Venice, Bohemia and the Netherlands. The history of trade beads dates to the 15th century when Portuguese trading ships arrived on the coast of West Africa to exploit its many resources, including gold, slaves, ivory and palm oil. At that time, beads were a major part of the currency exchanged for people and products. Over the following four centuries millions of beads were traded to Africa and by the 19th century European bead makers were producing a wide variety of designs specifically for the African trade.

Some designs were particularly popular, such as the millefiori (‘thousand flower’) form seen here, which reinvented an ancient technique from western Asia to produce colourful beads formed of many small cross-sections of multicoloured canes fused together or embedded into a matrix.