The Parisian golden age of pearls

Excavations on Paleolithic sites such as Madeleine, in France, Grimaldi, in Italy, Sungir, in Russia, etc. have exhumed them, sometimes in the thousands, associated with remains, notably sewn onto clothing. In other words, they have been used as adornment for tens of thousands of years. What is it about? Of pearls. And they have never stopped being fashionable until today, with good times. This was how it was during Antiquity, where these “tears of Aphrodite” were bought, at the rate of one or two per year, by wealthy Roman families so that when they came of age, the girls had a necklace. entire. And we remember the episode, recounted by Pliny the Elder and nevertheless contested, of Cleopatra who, wanting to offer the most expensive meal, dissolved in vinegar one of the two large pearls that she wore in earrings ears.

Another moment of great enthusiasm took place in France, between the end of the 19th^e and the middle of the 20th century^e century, when Paris became the pearl capital. And this pinnacle is precisely the subject of an exhibition at the crossroads of history, Art and science organized by the School of Jewelry Arts in Paris.

History first, with the rise of the Parisian market. Until 1906, the market was held mainly by the British who, from India, captured pearls fished mainly in the Persian Gulf, especially in Bahrain. By offering better conditions, by doing without intermediaries, a certain Leonard Rosenthal changed the course of things and directed the sectors towards Paris where a number of traders settled. Artisans, jewelers, artists, advertisers, couturiers, fell in love with the pearl (its price sometimes exceeded that of the diamond!) which was the rich era of Art Nouveau, Art Deco, the Belle Époque…

This golden age ended, and several reasons can be mentioned: crisis of 1929, evolution of fashion, rise of Nazism… But the pearl never ceased to inspire creators and, even today, it finds its place in many jewelry.

It’s time for art, because the pieces of high jewelry shown are exceptional. As Léonard Pouy, art historian and curator of the exhibition, says: “We have the most beautiful in the world. » Thus, this clip “Sheep’s head” from 2006 with rows of pearls instead of wool, from the JAR house.

Or this bodice front designed by Henri Vever in 1905, in Mississippi pearls.

Or this “Gladiateur” brooch, released in 1956 from the workshops of Van Cleef & Arpels, support of the School of Jewelry Arts. In the middle of yellow gold, diamonds, emeralds… the torso of the young fighter is represented by a large pearl with an unusual shape, not spherical, and called “baroque” for this reason. How to explain this aspect?

It’s science’s turn to enter the scene. And first it is worth remembering what a pearl is. The mother-of-pearl that composes it is made up of a stack of layers of aragonite crystals, a mineral composed of calcium carbonate CaCO₃arranged like bricks in a wall, the mortar being a mixture of proteins and sugars (conchyolin). We distinguish fine pearls, which appear naturally, from those called “cultured”. A legend has it that the first appear when, for example, a grain of sand slips into the shell of the bivalve mollusc that is the oyster, essentially of the type Pinctada : this would surround the intruder with mother-of-pearl to neutralize it. This is not the case.

Even if the mechanism still retains some mysteries, its broad outlines have been clarified. Some cells of the animal’s mantle, the outermost structure of the soft body which lines the interior of the shell, would detach, following a probably viral infection, and would continue, after having taken the form of a so-called sac. pearl maker”, to do what they are programmed to do: produce mother-of-pearl until a pearl is obtained.

Those of culture, more frequent, result from a more complicated process, explained by Nathalie Le Gloahec, who created a pearl farm in Tahiti: “A nucleus, that is to say a spherical piece of shell of a freshwater mussel from Mississippi, United States, is surrounded by a piece of the mantle of a donor oyster, then inserted into the gonad of another, recipient. There, the graft becomes the germ of a future pearl. »

And the gladiator’s baroque pearl? According to Olivier Segura, gemologist and second curator of the exhibition, this would be an example of “blowing”, when a gas release occurs inside the pearl bag, deforms the pearl and makes it a sort of balloon inside. from which organic matter decomposes. It is a fairly rare phenomenon and not completely explained, but which has left bitter memories for certain traders. When these pearls pierce, and the pestilential odors they release require you to open the window for several days! This has never harmed the Parisian “perlomania”, and we bet that you will succumb to it too.

“Paris, capital of pearls”, at the School of Jewelry Arts, in Paris, until 1^is June 2025.