THE MAGIC CIRCLE
A celebration of the oldest known gem—the pearl
Symbols of virginity or trophies of ultimate excess: no other jewel has the contradictory allure of the paradoxical pearl. By Hannah Betts. Photographed by Victor Demarchelier and Paul Zak.
What do Cleopatra, Coco Chanel and Holly Golightly have in common? As parlour games go, it’s a good one. That said, anyone gazing at these pages will have it immediately: all were girls in pearls. From baubles sported in Mesopotamia (now Northern Iraq) in about 2300BC to the demure ornaments of debutantes, man—and more specifically, woman—has always been enamoured of the poetry of pearls.
Part of this magic resides in the curious chemistry of their creation. Foreign bodies caught inside the shells of molluscs (oysters, yes, but also clams and mussels) irritate the tender f lesh into secreting a protective substance that solidifies into layers of nacre. Cut a genuine pearl in half and one finds rings in the manner of a tree. The pearl’s lustre is the product of light refracted through these layers; the more layers, the greater the gleam.
The origins of such molluscs lie in the Cambrian period, some 530 million years ago. There are fossilised pearls dating back 225 million years, making them one of humanity’s oldest and most coveted gems. They appear in all shades—pinks, browns, yellows, blacks— according to the colour of their surroundings, and in as many shapes as sizes. That said, other than the opulent Baroque pearl drop, the nonpareil will always be the perfect, round, pure white paragon.
Ancient Greeks considered pearls the result of lightning strikes at sea; Romans, the frozen tears of gods. Pliny the Elder ascribed to the Arabian notion that they were solidified dewdrops. Pearls have been associated with good fortune and ill, with the power of a charm and pure voodoo rising. Pearls, then, sit squarely— roundly—as the luminous incarnation of paradox: a prosaic physical function that becomes a priceless treasure; a piece of luck that is no less a disaster in the making; emblems of modest, often sanctioned purity, while yet a f lagrant display of earthly power.
As late as 1923, the reward Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt (mother of the jeans entrepreneur) received for passing her virginity test was for her future mother-in-law to demand scissors from a waiter and lop off USD70,000’s worth of her roped pearls at lunch, presenting them with the words: “All Vanderbilt women have pearls.” Debutantes could sally forth as “gels” in pearls where diamonds would have provoked scandal.
And, yet, at the same time as they could signal modesty, so pearls could figure forth the most swaggering royalty, power and excess. The paradigmatic expression of this came in Cleopatra’s wager with Mark Antony that she could serve him the most expensive dinner ever consumed. Minxishly, she removed a priceless pearl earring, dissolved it in a glass of wine, drank it, and offered him the other to do the same.
Pearls have frequently been the subject of sumptuary laws stating that only the highest echelons should wear them; something that encouraged the middle-class aspirations to possess them. The Park Avenue queens of the Gilded Age were no less desirous of pearls than their Renaissance forebears. In 1916, Mrs Morton Plant persuaded her spouse to trade their mansion for a $1.2 million strand of Cartier pearls; the building still houses the company's New York headquarters.
American idols Babe Paley, CZ Guest, Jackie Kennedy, Barbara Bush and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy were all pearl girls, and Elizabeth Taylor crowned herself the Queen of Hollywood with the 500-year-old La Peregrina.
Girls on the make—whether Mrs Simpson or Mrs Thatcher— raised their game with pearls. Max Beerbohm’s fatal Zuleika Dobson, the enterprising orphan, boasts contrasting pearls that have a habit of wending their way into suicidal suitors’ shirt studs. “From her right ear drooped heavily a black pearl, from her left a pink; and their difference gave an odd, bewildering witchery to the little face between.”
Coco Chanel, a woman of still more obscure origins, inaugurated the trend for mixing the faux with the f lawless. Later, her lover, the Duke of Westminister, presented her with a yard of real pearls for each of her birthdays and every Christmas; but these riches did not stop her playing with the fake variety. Pearls appealed to Chanel, whose career was built on a rejection of Belle Époque excess in favour of minimal modernism. As Christian Dior mused: “With a black pullover and 10 rows of pearls she revolutionised fashion.” Something of the same contradictory impulse is evident in Holly Golightly, whose pearl choker offers a clue to her uncertain status in Breakfast
at Tiffany’s: “She isn’t a phoney because she’s a real phoney… ” Jewellery expert Beatriz Chadour-Sampson shrugs that no one now cares about distinctions between the fake and the real. Attempts at simulation had been going on for 2,000 years before Japan’s Kokichi Mikimoto perfected his technique, and these “fakes” are scrupulously selected. Meanwhile, only one in 10,000 oysters will yield a natural example good enough to use as a jewel.
However, an exhibtion that will please all pearl fans is V&A’s “Pearls,” an epic, literally brilliant exhibition held in conjunction with the Qatar Museums Authority and co-curated by the QMA’s Hubert Bari. The exhibition offers a history of pearling and pearl culture, encompassing gemology, ecology, anthropology, theology and economics. It includes more than 200 objects and a king’s ransom of gems, from the pearls caught in situ in their bivalve hosts to the great vats of mass-produced, Chinese freshwater pearls.
Beatriz Chadour-Sampson is the guest co-curator of the exhibition and author of its accompanying book. “Pearls have fascinated humanity century after century. I am still searching for the source of their allure. Wherever it lies, there is a magic in them.”
Pearls have been associated with the power of a charm
or pure voodoo Pearls runs at the V&A through Januiary 19 2014, as part of the Qatar UK 2013 year of culture