Paperweights for sale.
Paperweights were first made in Europe, in Venice in the late 15th century. Some of the earliest surviving examples were made in France c1750 onwards and in England from the early 1800's using sulphides (ceramic cameos) as the centrepiece in a ball of clear glass.
The Venetians revived the Roman millefiori (thousand flowers) techniqe of creating a design within a rod of glass. This was done by clustering together rods of different colours to form a design and then fusing these rods into one, pulling it out to make one long thin rod, and cutting it into sections. These sections were (and still are) cut into slices each slice with the same cross-sectional design (often a flower, sometimes a figure or a letter or date).
The period from 1840 to 1860 is often referred to as the Classical Period of paperweight production. This was the time when the great French glassworks at Clichy, Baccarat, and St. Louis led the world with the quality and creativity of their paperweights. Other countries followed their lead, and in the USA two major paperweight manufacturers were the New England Glass Company and the Boston and Sandwich Glass Company
Glass has been around for centuries and has basically remained unchanged with only the production methods becoming more efficient and glass quality becoming better and better.
Art Deco glass uses geometric patterns, bold colours, exuberant, sometimes stylised, female figures, and animal motifs. Major designers of Art Deco glass were Rene Lalique, Maurice Marinot, Daum Freres, Marius Sabino, Etling, Schneider, Gabriel Argy-Rousseau, and Francois Decorchemont.