Pearls - Gems Found Under the Oyster's Shell

Pearls are at once a symbol of innocence and purity and the ultimate symbol of elegance and subtle sexiness. Pearls have been coveted by man since the first cave dweller broke her tooth while eating an oyster.

For thousands of years, pearls symbolized wealth and with wealth - power. The African Queen Cleopatra is said to have infamously dissolved a string of pearls in wine and drank the contents to prove her unlimited wealth to Mark Anthony. The ancient world connected pearls to the moon and often bestowed them with magical powers. The Incas and the Aztecs so coveted the pearls they had rich pearl fisheries that came to the attentions of Europeans in their early discoveries of the "New" World.

The Hindus believed pearls to be a symbol of the moon while the Chinese thought a pearl's growth was actually controlled by the moon. The Chinese also believed pearls to be symbolic of perfection and purity.

Pearls have been prominent in secular and religious life during various times and in different cultures. They have been mentioned in the Bible, the Koran and the Talmud. During the Dark Ages, pearls were a talisman - protection from harm in battle - for knights journeying to the East in search of the Holy Grail.

Timeless Beauty, Ageless Wearer

Heiress Barbara Hutton wore them at age three, Lady Brooks Astor wore them at 93. Audrey Hepburn was memorable in pearls as free spirited Holly Golightly in Breakfast At Tiffany's. Designer CoCo Chanel dripped with them. Singer Rihanna has been seen swathed in them. American First Ladies, including Jacqueline Kennedy, Barbara Bush and Michelle Obama, made them fashionable.

Often, young girls wearers are given a pearl at their first birthday and receive one every year thereafter until they have a string for their sixteenth birthday or for their debutante party. For many, sororities such as Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated the pearl is their gem of choice.

Pearl's Layered History

Because pearls are found naturally in various waters throughout the globe, their history is like the layers of the pearl itself. In many cultures, it was not the pearl that was so valued early in their history, but rather the mother-of-pearl that was found lining the shell. The pearl was, in fact, a rarity. Mother-of-pearl, the oyster shell's lining, was not. Once the use of pearls as jewelry began, however, the practice never abatted. Ancient Middle Eastern Cultures may have been the first to value the pearls as jewelry, evidenced by the discovery of a Persian princess who was buried with her pearl jewelry in 520 B. C. Fittingly, the Persians believed pearls to be tears of the gods. The princess was buried with her tears.

The practice of wearing pearls as jewelry is thought to have spread from Persia to the ancient Mediterranean world and then across the Roman Empire. Some historian believe evidence suggests Julius Cesar advanced his campaign across Europe into Britain because of the freshwater pearls that could be found in the rivers of Scotland.

A symbol of preciousness and purity, pearls are mentioned as jewelry in Chinese texts as far back as 4,000 years ago.

The Hindu and Muslim world has a long history of men and women valuing and wearing pearls. In Islam, pearls represented perfection and completeness. Many Islamic rulers possessed renowned, expansive collections of gems including massive numbers of pearls.

The Hindu believed the pearl to be a gem that was second only to diamonds, associating it with the "cool" brilliance of the moon. According to Hindu legend, "Krishna the Adorable, the eighth incarnation of the great god Vishnu...discovered the pearl when he drew it from the depths of the sea as a gift for his daughter on her wedding day" write Ki Hackney and Diana Edkins in their informative book People and Pearls: The Magic Endures.

European cultures during the 13th and 14th centuries were very clear in their regard of the pearl as a symbol of status and wealth. Mimicking the practice of the ancient Romans, certain classes were forbidden wearing pearls even if they could afford to buy them. For example, lawyers and teachers could not be seen wearing pearls. This insured that the pearl's value would remain high and its "mystic" intact.

Queen Elizabeth I (1533 - 1603) had a "passion for pearls" and was painted wearing ropes of the organic gems and elaborate clothing displaying pearls weaved into the fabric. She often adorned her hair with the pearls, her crowns displaying pearls of varying sizes. For the Virgin Queen, their purity was symbolic of the "chaste" image she projected during her reign.

18th and 19th Century Russian nobility took pearl wearing to the extreme. The royal designers created lavish jewelry, intricate decorative headdress and articles of clothing with pearls extravagantly woven and embroidered in the voluminous layers of fabric. Pictures of members of the Romanov dynasty, the last Russian Dynasty, show the nobility, young and old, wearing pearls in varying degrees of lavishness for various occasions, from coronation to christening.

19th Century France was part of the history of one of the world's largest pearls found in the Gulf of Mexico. La Peragrina or "The Wanderer" which passed from King Philip II of Spain, played a part in politics between Spain and England and later found its way to France in 1813. Napoleon Bonaparte's fashionable wife, Josephine, wore pearls as did Empress Eugenie, Napoleon III's wife. Much later, actor Richard Burton brought the pearl back to England when he purchased it for his wife, Elizabeth Taylor.

China began it's long standing love affair with pearls in earnest during the Manchu Dynasty (1644 - 1911). The gem was not relegated to jewelry and fabric, but was also used in furnishings for the nobility.

The popularity of pearls surged in America in the late 1800's and early 1900's as the new millionaires - Americas's royalty - came into their wealth. What better way to display their wealth than to purchase pearls, which weare now becoming increasingly scarce in the natural due to their immense popularity throughout the cultures of the world?

Always resourceful, however, necessity (and scarcity) led man to the development of the cultured pearl. In the early 1900's the Japanese, who were not as enamored of the pearl as other cultures, perfected a process for producing pearls from oysters that had been induced to produce a pearl not by chance but rather with the introduction of an irritant by man's hand.

Man continues to attempt to improve on pearl cultivation. Recently, a Florida oceanographic institute has been awarded a grant to to develop a technique to produce pearls from the queen conch, consequently creating a new industry for Florida. Up to this point, conch have not been successfully farmed for their coral colored pearls.

How a Pearl Is Created

While its beauty is simplistic and pure, its formation is anything but. The development of the pearl is an abnormal occurance in nature and is a response to the introduction of an irritant - sand, a parasite, even food - into the shell of a mollusk, making it rare. Of the pearl forming types of mollusks only about one in forty will produce a pearl. The mollusks' reaction to these different irritants will produce different types of pearls. If numerous spots within the mollusks are irritated, then numerous pearls can form, although these pearls tend to be of smaller size.

The pearl is formed as the mollusk continues to protect itself from the irritant by surrounding the offensive material with layers of calcium carbonate, forming the laminae. These layers of laminae form unevenly, hence the ability to discern the authenticity of a pearl by rubbing the pearls over the teeth - real pears are gritty while imitations are smooth. The outer most layer of the laminae forms the nacre, or mother of pearl layer. The nacre is a transparent, overlapping substance that, if examined under a compound microscope, will show striations that lay in furrows. These striations reflect light resulting in luminosity. Like snowflakes, no two pearls are the same.

The best known source of pearls in are the marine mollusks pearl oyster, conch and abalone. Marine pearls are more apt to be spherically shaped pearl eyes or pearl drops. When marine mollusks develop into ovoid or pear shaped pearls, they are called as pear pearls.

Freshwater mollusks also produce pearls more irregularly shaped pearls called baroque pearls. They are also the source of seed pearls which were wildly popular in the delicate, lace-like pearl jewelry designed in 1800's American and European pearl jewelry as a symbol of gentility and purity.

Not surprisingly, one of the determinants of the pearl's value is its shape and its size. The size and shape of pearls are due to temperature and chemistry of the water and the health, species and size of the mollusk growing the pearl. Pearls closest to perfect spheres are naturally the most valuable, while baroque pearls, those with very irregular shapes, tend to be of lesser value. The size of a single pearl can vary from the size of pin head and barely visible, to the size of a pigeon's egg. The Hope Pearl is currently the largest known pearl weighing in at a hefty three ounces and measuring two inches long. It has a long history of owners including London banker Henry Phillip Hope in the early 1800's. It is now at the South Kensington Museum in London.

When considering the value of a pearl, jewelers also look at the luster, or what they call "orient" of a pearl. This is comparable to the "fire" of the diamond - the more lustrous, the more valuable. Again, the marine water pearls have more luster because of the thicker coating of nacre and, consequently, will command a higher price on the market.

In the late 19th and early 20th Century the pearl supply began to be adversely affected by pollution and high demand. The affect was so drastic that even though the Japanese were not originally interested in pearls for the jewelry business, they saw an opportunity and introduced the cultured pearl, a pearl that is "farmed" in beds rather than grown in open sea or fresh water.

T. Kishkuawa, O. Kwabata, T. Muse and K. Mikimoto introduced the cultured pearl during the late 1800's. Initially, the world didn't warm up to the idea of cultured pearls as being true pearls and it wasn't until the 50's when designers began to use them extensively in their collections, that cultured pearls became extremely popular. As a result, while the natural pearl continues to be of higher value, 90% of the pearls sold today are cultured pearls.

Along with the highly coveted natural pearl and the more affordable and still beautiful cultured pearl, there are also imitation or faux pearls. Faux pearls are made of glass beads coated with a mixture of varnish and fish scales or mica. The makers and retailers of the faux pearl must declare that they are not pearls grown under a shell, but are entirely manufactured.

Excitingly, for the pearl lover there are many ways to wear pearls today and just as many sources to purchase them. If you are planning to make pearls a part of your jewelry collection - and most women do - be sure to know what you are buying as you are deciding to make that investment. Choose the best that you can afford, then go out and conquer with "pearl power!"