The pearl comes out of its shell

We've loved the pearl for 7500 years. Millennia that civilizations around the world attribute divine origins to it. Centuries that goldsmiths, jewellers and jewelers have been overflowing with creativity to sublimate it, again and again. And that we wear it, year after year, from generation to generation.

Here is an article that will make you (re)discover 10 facets of this mythical and yet mysterious pearl:

The oldest fine pearl discovered so far has been dated to around 5500 ACN. It was glued to the forehead of a deceased person lying in a mass grave along the coast of the Persian Gulf on the territory of the United Arab Emirates. Until this recent discovery, beads were thought to have been part of aesthetic customs and funeral rites "only" since the 4th millennium ACN.

In cultures around the world, even far from pearl regions, pearls have given rise to many myths and legends and have been attributed a divine origin. In all of them, they represent femininity par excellence.

During Antiquity, it was customary for wealthy Roman families to buy one or two pearls each year from each daughter so that she could own a whole necklace when she came of age.

Pearls were nicknamed "Aphrodite's tears" in ancient times and were referred to by the Greek word "margarita", which represented something unique, precious and pure.

The Chinese were the first to attempt a process to create pearl culture, not the Japanese as many believe. On the other hand, Chinese attempts were unsuccessful and it is to the land of the rising sun that we owe the real grafting process.

It was almost simultaneously that three Japanese people who did not know each other discovered the secret of the pearl transplant. It later appeared that only two of these Japanese researchers were the real inventors of the round cultured pearl.

The famous Mikimoto is not one of these two inventors. What Mikimoto is credited with is the exploitation of the discovery and worldwide commercialization of the cultured pearl, which today adorns women all over the world.

In many Western countries there is a superstition that it is bad luck for a bride to wear pearls on her wedding day, the pearls representing the tears she will shed throughout her married life.

Natural pearls are very rare, and therefore obviously more valuable and more expensive than cultured pearls. However, it is important to know that grafting is a very delicate process. Out of 100 grafted specimens, only 30 result in the birth of a beautiful pearl to be mounted on a jewel.

Pearls are organic gems that have a varied palette of colours. The most common are of course white pearls, but there are also pink, champagne, gold, silver, blue, grey and black pearls with green, aubergine, ...