Flower Forever is a project dedicated to the craft, including a beautiful book -“Flower Forever. Bead Craft from France and Venice” – an exhibition and lectures on beaded flowers by Ragnar Levi and Edvard Koinberg. Mr Levi saw in Murano’s Glass Museum a brunch of glass flowers made by my aunt, Nella Lopez y Royo who brought back the tradition of these flowers.
Levi asked me to write in the book the story of my aunt:
“Both my paternal aunts had artistic talent; while aunt Marta became a fine sculptor who won the Biennale in 1935 with her Medusa in marble, her sister Nella was skilful with her nimble fingers – even as a very young woman she was an accomplished embroideries. After the first world was, Nella visited the glass makers in Venice with her father and for the first time discovered the bead factories of Murano, the Conterie. I know that as a child she had been gently impressed by the glass treasures of Murano, but it was not until her old age, when, aided by her faithful servant Marina, she began to devote herself to the revival of the bead handicraft. It was of course also thanks to the fact that her companion Maria Paleologo knew many IMPIRARESSE. These woman strung long strands of beads of various hues, and I remember aunt Nella having numerous strings hanging on racks. She later used same strings of beads to fashion flowers in all colours of the rainbow, with the help of marvellous imagination – tulips, daffodils, bluebells… Aunt Nella’s flowers brightened shop windows and adorned dining tables. Her Fiori di Neve, Rose d’oro and d’argento are reminiscent of the Madonna Nicopeia in St Mark’s. Nella’s enchanting flora is still talked about, a wonderful and beautiful memento of her and the blooms she so adored”.
Photo(C) Edvard Koinberg from the book “Flower Forever”, Ragnar Levi
The book “Flower Forever. Bead Craft from France and Venice” starts with a picture of a precious linen panel with a motto: “Remembrance is the sweetest flower that in a garden grows”; it represents a fountain in a circle with two bushes of flowers each side, framed by a glass border in several colours.
The author says right that the history of glass goes “back to Egypt and Mesopotamia, the land in the Northern Syria between two rivers Tigris and the Euphrates”. The beads it’s an old tradition in Murano’s glass making and you can find it all over the world: in the masks of Alice Springs’s Aborigines and in the necklace of African women. The beads were considered as precious secret jewels. “We press, dry and depict flowers as a ways of preserving and remembering”.
Photo(C) Edvard Koinberg from the book “Flower Forever”, Ragnar Levi
Ragnar Levi is a Swedish author, award‐winning science journalist and a long‐time collector of beaded flowers from Italy and France. With a background in medicine and a sensitive eye for the fragility and transient nature of the human body, Mr. Levi took an interest in this delicate and elaborate handicraft where flowers are immortalized as memorial objects.
http://blommaforalltid.wordpress.com
Photo(C) Edvard Koinberg from the book “Flower Forever”, Ragnar Levi
How to buy the book:
- European and other non-US customers
One of the leading Swedish web book stores http://www.bokus.com sells the English Edition of the book, shipping to all countries listed below*.
How to order through Bokus.com:http://www.bokus.com/english
* Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Finland (incl. Åland), France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan , Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain (incl. Canary Islands), Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom
- US customers:
Please use Google translate at the publisher’s website: http://bokshop.langenskiolds.se/se/flower-forever or
e-mail directly to: info@langenskiolds.se
The price quoted there excludes shipping. According to the publisher the book should be shipped in one week. Please direct any questions about shipping and payment directly to the publisher.
Photo(C) Edvard Koinberg from the book “Flower Forever”, Ragnar Levi
If you are interested in bead flowers, see also: “Fiori di Perle a Venezia” by Nella Lopez y Royo Sammartini, Lina Urban, Tudy Sammartini, Doretta Davanzo Poli, Margherita Minguzzi – Centro Internazionale della Grafica di Venezia, 1992.