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The Stature of a Pearl

For ages, pearls have been valued as one of the world's most beautiful and exquisite gems. In today’s world, pearls are the foundation of every woman's jewelry collection, truly expanding a women’s range of style and grace. Pearls are fashionable, feminine, rich and adaptable. They stand out for their classic simplicity. A simple cultured pearl necklace can take a woman through every moment in her life and every outfit in her wardrobe. Pearls are timeless.

The History Of Pearls

Thousands of years before recorded history, mankind discovered pearls while searching the seas for food. As such a rare find and because of their warm inner glow and shimmering iridescence, pearls became one of the most highly prized and sought-after gems. Pearls are revered in countless references in the religions and mythology of cultures from the earliest times.

In ancient Greece, pearls were cherished for their beauty and association with love and marriage. For the Romans, pearls were the definitive mark of wealth and social standing. The ancient Egyptians prized pearls so much they were buried with them. It is said that Cleopatra won a wager with Mark Antony where she said she could consume the wealth of an entire nation in just one meal by dissolving a single pearl in a glass of wine and drinking it. Like other Egyptians who prized pearls so much, she was buried with them. During the Dark Ages, fair maidens of nobility cherished graceful pearl necklaces and brave knights wore pearls into battle, believing that the magic of these lustrous gems would protect them from harm. During the Renaissance period, pearls were everywhere in the royal courts of Europe. So esteemed was their status that in many countries only nobility could legally wear them.

As Europeans expanded into the New World, the discovery of pearls in Central America added to European wealth. Tragically, their greed and lust for the sea-grown gems resulted in the virtual depletion of all the American pearl oysters by the 17th century. Until the early 1900's, natural pearls were accessible only to those of substantial means. However, with the advent of pearl cultivation, pearls are now more available and affordable.

How Pearls Form In Oysters

Pearls are found inside a living creature – an oyster. Unlike precious metals or gemstones that are mined from the earth, pearls are born inside a living oyster. The formation of a natural pearl begins when a foreign substance slips into the oyster between the mantle and the shell, which irritates the mantle. The oyster's natural reaction is to cover up that irritant to protect itself. The mantle covers the irritant with layers of the same crystalline substance called nacre that is used to create the shell. It is composed of microscopic crystals of calcium carbonate, aligned perfectly with one another, so that light passing along the axis of one crystal is reflected and refracted by another to produce a rainbow of light and color, resulting in the wonderful and lustrous gem we call a pearl.

Pearls also come in a range of colors, including white, black, gray, red, blue and green and can be found all over the world, except black pearls are that are indigenous to the South Pacific. Most pearls that we see are nicely rounded objects (these are the most valuable ones). However, some pearls form in an uneven shape – these are called ‘baroque pearls’.

The same process that creates natural pearls creates cultured pearls, but with cultured pearls, pearl harvesters initiate the process. To create a cultured pearl, the harvester opens the oyster shell and cuts a small slit in the mantle tissue. Small irritants are then inserted under the mantle. In freshwater cultured pearls, cutting the mantle is enough to induce the nacre secretion that produces a pearl – an irritant doesn't have to be inserted.

In Japanese pearl cultivation, scientists have identified strains of oysters with superior pearl-producing characteristics. These selectively bred oysters generate pearls of exceptional luster and color clarity. In a process referred to as "nucleation”, "grafting" or "seeding", highly skilled technicians carefully open live pearl oysters, and make an incision in the oyster's body with surgical precision. They then place a tiny piece of "mantle tissue" from another oyster into a relatively safe location and place a small round piece of shell, or "nucleus," beside the inserted mantle tissue. The nucleus is a mother-of-pearl bead made from an American freshwater mussel. The cells from the mantle tissue develop around the nucleus forming a sac, which closes and starts to secrete nacre (the crystalline substance that forms the pearl). The nucleated oysters are then returned to sheltered bays rich in nutrients where they feed and grow, depositing layer after layer of lustrous nacre around the nuclei implanted within them.

During this time, the oysters are given the utmost care, while suspended in the water, from the rafts above. Water temperatures and feeding conditions are checked daily at various depths, moving the oysters up or down as appropriate. Periodically, the oysters are lifted from the sea for cleaning and health treatments. Seaborne organisms (such as seaweed or barnacles) that might interfere with their feeding are removed from the oysters' shells and the shells are treated with medicinal compounds to fend off parasites. Eventually, after many months of growth and care, the oysters are ready for harvest. Those that have survived the many perils of the sea are brought ashore and opened to reveal the stunning beauty held within – a lovely and lustrous cultured pearl. Though a cultured pearl is less rare than a natural pearl, they are still quite rare and special. Their quality and beauty pearl is considered the equal to a natural pearl. Whether the product of serendipity or cultured by human nurturing, the natural process of pearl creation is the same.

Why Cultured Pearl Are Also Rare

Quality pearls can never be mass-produced. While millions of saltwater oysters are nucleated every year, only a small proportion produce fine quality cultured pearls. Many oysters don't survive the nucleating process or become weak and fall prey to disease. Heavy rains that flood the bays with fresh water can negatively affect saltwater cultured pearls by reducing their salinity and killing the oysters. Certain species of phytoplankton undergo explosive growth, creating the dreaded "red tide," which exhausts the oxygen in the water, and suffocates the oysters. Other problems include typhoons, the attacks of predators and parasites and the lack of sufficient nutrients in the water.

Because of all this, the harvesting of pearls is a fairly low yield process, with only 50 percent of nucleated oysters surviving to bear pearls. Of these, only 20 percent bear pearls of marketable quality. So less than 5 percent of nucleated oysters yield pearls of such perfect shape, luster and color as to be considered fine gem quality.

The art of assembling pearls into a necklace, a pair of earrings or other jewelry calls for refined skills in matching by size, shape, color and luster. Only highly trained experts with years of experience can perform this task. To find 47 pearls for a perfectly matched 16-inch necklace, a pearl processor must cull through more than 10,000 pearls.

Ultimately, an exquisitely matched set of quality pearls is very special indeed. Yet the style statement it makes is quite simply timeless. For classic, yet understated elegance – nothing outshines the pearl.

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