PRECIOUS PEARLS
Coveted and collected around the world, the pearl stands out as a unique beauty with rich cultural significance. Pearls have sparked myth, decorated ceremonies, and inspired jewelry for millennia, and yet remain at the forefront of modern jewelry design.
Pearls are one of the most storied gems, inspiring myths from China to India, to Polynesia and the Mediterranean. According to Roman mythology, when Venus, the goddess of love, emerged from the ocean at her birth she was already adorned in pearls. In the classic Renaissance painting by Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus, the goddess stands within a woman-sized shell, as if she were a precious pearl. No wonder the gem has resonated as a symbol of love throughout the western world.
“A woman needs ropes and ropes of pearls.”
-Coco Chanel
The Rise of the Cultured Pearl
For thousands of years, pearls were extraordinarily rare, occurring in mollusks only by chance. In 1893 the Japanese innovator Kokichi Mikimoto began stimulating the growth of pearls by seeding mollusks with foreign matter. Over the next decades, Mikimoto’s cultured pearls revolutionized the market, taking this gemstone from an exceedingly rare treasure reserved for royalty, to a valuable yet accessible jewelry staple. Today, cultured pearls represent the vast majority of the jewelry market.
Pearl Origins
A pearl is formed when an irritant is caught within a mollusk. The creature protects itself by covering the particle with nacre, the sometimes pearlescent substance which is found on the inside of a shell. While clams may form pearls occasionally, most of the world’s pearls come from mussels and oysters.
Pearl Varieties
Akoya Pearls
First introduced to the jewelry world by Mikimoto in 1916, Akoya pearls gained renown the world over for their unparalleled luster and perfect spherical form. They mostly appear in cream to white, with some in blue, pink, and yellow and are today raised in China as well as Japan. This darling of the jewelry world paved the way for the cultivation of all types of pearls.
Freshwater Pearls
Freshwater pearls are raised in mussels, instead of in saltwater oysters. These pearls appear in a variety of shapes in colors ranging from white and cream to pastels, including pink, peach, yellow, and lavender. These pearls usually come from the United States, China, or Japan.
South Sea Pearls
Cultured in the tropical and semi-tropical waters of Australia, French Polynesia, Indonesia, and Myanmar, South Sea Pearls stand out for their impressive size, which ranges from 10mm to 20mm. Their appealing color palette includes white, silver, and golden tones. For their size, beauty, and rarity, South Sea pearls are among the most highly valued pearls in the world.
Tahitian Pearls
Within Black Lipped oysters, found in the waters of French Polynesia, black Tahitian Pearl are born. This oyster variety once seemed doomed for extinction but is thriving today in the protected waters of pearl farms. Only one in 10,000 of these oysters contains a pearl, making these gems a rare treasure. Ranging in size from 8mm to 25mm, most “black” Tahitian pearls are not actually black, but rather gray, green and pink, iridescent peacock, silver, or bronze in tone.
Keshi Pearls
Usually, a pearl forms around an irritant, which remains at a pearl’s center and called the nucleus. In the case of a Keshi, a pearl is formed spontaneously, without a nucleus and composed entirely of lustrous nacre. The resulting pearls occur in a variety of non-spherical shapes, bringing an element of individual character and whimsy to their design applications. They are found in Japan, China, French Polynesia, Indonesia, Australia, and the Philippines.
