EXPO ‘Pearls’ – V&A Museum (UK) – 21 sept 2013 – 19 janv. 2014
Pearls – - Victoria & Albert Museum
Pearl jewellery through the ages
Across the Roman Empire jewels with pearls were a desirable and expensive luxury, a symbol of wealth and status. In medieval Europe pearls appear as symbols of authority on regalia, and as attributes of Christ and the Virgin Mary in jewellery, symbolizing purity and chastity. By the Renaissance, portraits show that nobles and affluent merchants were adorned with pearls, the symbolism became increasingly secular.
By the 17th and 18th centuries pearls had become lavish adornments, often worn in a seductive manner. They were also demonstrations of high social rank. By the early 19th century pearls embellished more intimate or ‘sentimental’ jewellery to convey personal messages celebrating love or expressing grief.
The opulence and ceremony enjoyed by the courts of Europe in the 19th century was favourable for pearls, necklaces of all lengths were fashionable, from long ropes to chokers.
In Paris, jewellers working in the Art Nouveau style were fascinated by the extraordinary shaped pearls and transformed them into breathtaking interpretations of nature.
In the ‘Roaring Twenties’ urban life changed fashions, women wore short sleeveless slim-line dresses and pearl sautoirs dangled down to the waist and beyond.
Lover’s Eye brooch, England, 1800-20, gold, pearls, diamonds and painted miniature. Museum no. P.56-1977, © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Bodice ornament – Spain About 1670 – Gold filigree with freshwater pearls – Collection of Deborah Elvira - Photo © Martin VellónContemporary design
Jewellery design experienced great changes during the second half of the twentieth century. During the 1960s and 1970s avant-garde jewellers in Europe broke away from traditional gem-set jewellery to create abstract sculptural designs with unconventional settings for pearls. In contrast, the high-end jewellers sought a path between tradition and Modernism. From the 1980s, the emphasis for artist jewellers has been less about the value of the pearl and more about novelty of design. Searching for new ways of wearing pearls, they set them in a variety of metals, often with textured surfaces and successfully combined them with non-precious materials.
Today the range of aesthetics in pearl jewellery is boundless and the variety of pearls quite remarkable. Whether natural, cultured or imitation, pearls continue to be fashionable and are being worn by increasing numbers of women. Pearls are a symbol of femininity and timeless jewels befitting at any event or occasion.
‘Grand Jeté’ brooch – Made and designed by Geoffrey Rowlandson (born 1931) – London 1999 – 18 carat gold, brilliant-cut diamonds and cultured baroque pearls – Private Collection © Geoffrey Rowlandson
Snow White Wrist Piece ‘A Fusion of Winter Snow and Spring Flowers’ – Made and designed by Nora Fok (born 1952) – London 2012
– 3D printed white plastic, cultured white pearls – Private Collection – © Frank Hills, photographer
Brooch – Made and designed by Friedrich Becker (1922-1997) Düsseldorf, Germany – 1962 – 18 carat white gold, 96 natural pearls in varying shades RSV Collection © Frau Hilde Becker
