June's birthstone: pearl
By Chloe Tomasik - 01/06/2007
June's birthstone is the pearl, the symbol of purity and innocence - and until the early 1900s more valuable than diamonds. Pearls are the earliest gem known to man - after all it only needed one prehistoric fisherman looking for food to open an oyster and find the pearl! No digging, polishing or enhancing required.
Pearls are, of course, a gorgeous accident of nature, formed when an irritant gets inside an oyster or mollusc. The oyster then secretes conchiolin around the foreign body to protect itself against the intruder and this eventually becomes a pearl. A cultured pearl will have the irritant (usually a bead) placed inside the oyster by man.
In Ancient times pearls came mainly from the seas around India and the Persian Gulf. However, only one oyster in 10,000 had an even spherical pearl - hence their high cost. But why some oysters produced pearls and some did not, resulted in beautiful legends about their creation: the Ancient Chinese believed that they came from the brain of the rain god (the sky dragon), and the Romans thought they were formed when raindrops fell into an open oyster and thus were the tears of the Gods.
Because they came from the heart of oysters, pearls were believed to have extraordinary medicinal properties. Cultures from the Chinese, Hindus, Greeks and Romans right up to 18th century Europeans wrote detailed accounts of the potency of pearls. They could apparently enhance complexion, cure swooning, haemorrhoids, ulcers and insanity (for the latter, dissolve pearls in lemon juice or crush and drink with milk.) They were even associated with enhancing longevity. Ground pearls are still used in cosmetics in parts of Asia today to improve the complexion.
There is a wonderful story that when Lorenzo de' Medici (Lorenzo The Magnificent) lay dying in Florence in 1492, he was given pulverized pearls to alleviate his fever and when asked how it tasted replied: "As pleasant as anything can be to a dying man." More romantically pearls in Classical Rome were always associated with Venus and so were often used in love potions. Perhaps that is why Cleopatra toasted Mark Anthony with wine in which she had dropped one of her pearl earrings, apparently costing more that the whole banquet.
However, there were two occasions when pearls were supposed to bring bad luck - perhaps this reflects the tears of the Gods in early beliefs. It was considered unlucky for a bride to wear pearls on her wedding day and dreaming of pearls was said to foretell sorrow. Perhaps the most fascinatingly gruesome story about pearls is that Charles 1st went to his execution wearing one pearl earring. After the execution the crowd below were said to have scrabbled about madly trying to retrieve the earring. The earring disappeared.
For hundreds of years pearls have been the perogative of the noble and wealthy. Look at any painting of Royalty - be they Emperors, Maharajas, Kings or Queens - and they are weighed down by pearls. Pearls sewn onto dresses, coats and hats, and worn in long ropes from Elizabeth 1st to wasp waisted Edwardians or fashioned into the chokers popularised by Princess Diana.
The man responsible for fall in value value of pearls was one Kokichi Mikimoto. In the early 1920's he marketed the first really good cultured pearls - large, even-sized and with a wonderful lustre. Up to this time, cultured pearls had been made from egg white mixed with snail slime or glass beads coated with fish scales (essence d'orient) which produced the iridescent effect. Interestingly, Mr Mikimoto must have believed that pearls enhanced longevity - he had two ground pearls daily with his breakfast and died at 96 in 1954.
But the advent of cultured and fake pearls made it possible for everyone to wear them. Fake or real they look stunning and, of course, fake ones can be so much bigger. Jackie Kennedy often wore a 3 strand fake pearl necklace which she bought for $200 - which when auctioned after her death fetched $200, 000. Even Princess Diana wore fake ones on occasion.
Pearls are only 3.5 on the Mohs scale of hardness (a finger nail is 2.5) and can easily be damaged and discoloured by acidity such as hair lacquer and perfume. In order to protect them, the old fashioned advice that pearls should always be put on last still holds good. If however, they do become discoloured the Romans suggested putting the pearls in 'bitches milk for 48 hours' or passing them through the urine of an 'uncorrupted youth' (do they still exist?). Today it is suggested that pearls should only be cleaned in a very mild soap and water solution.
So how do you tell real and cultured pearls from fake ones? Fake pearls feel slippery when rubbed against the teeth. Real and cultured, gritty. But the only way to tell real from cultured pearls is to have them X-rayed.
If you have interesting stories or pictures of pearls it would be fascinating to hear or see them so please send them in.