1958 Church Zodiac

An antique Baccarat millefiori weight discovered during restoration work on a war-damaged church encouraged the company to make millefiori of the quality they had been famous for in the 19th Century. In 1958, a series of close millefiori weights was issued, with the figure 8 on one of the canes. A blue cane with the figure 8 is at 12 o’clock in the first picture. Towards the end of that year, silhouettes of the signs of the zodiac were incorporated into these millefiori closepacks - which became known as Church Weights.
The multi-coloured canes around the perimeter are drawn into the flat, polished base and meet under the acid-etched Baccarat insignia.
(For more details of Church Weights see pages 50/51 in section I of Andrew Dohan’s DVD “Dictionary of Paperweight Signature Canes”).