Lhe pearl tells a certain story of the plume since the dawn of mankind. Thirty-four thousand years ago, 300 kilometers from present-day Moscow, three individuals were buried, adorned from head to toe with 15,000 ivory beads (mammoth), a colossal work. The sumptuous episode is narrated by anthropologist David Graeber (who died in 2020), certainly impressed, but hardly surprised.
Avant-garde and graphic in the flappers of the Roaring Twenties, neo-baroque to the ears of today’s queens of fashion or transgressive in a “gender fluid” approach, the pearl is a reflection of its time and different stories.
In his book In the beginning was… (The Links that Liberate, co-written with David Wengrow, 2021), he writes: “Currency almost always comes, initially, from objects essentially used as ornaments for the person. Pearls, shells, feathers, dog’s or whale’s teeth, gold and silver are all well-known examples. All of them have the sole purpose of making people look more interesting, and therefore more beautiful. »
In the same vein, the Roman Suetonius (c. 70-140) believed that the search for pearls had prompted Julius Caesar to invade (Great) Britain. So, before thinking about the Roaring Twenties and the fashion for pearls, let’s stop in Egypt. In his Natural History, Pliny the Elder reports that on the occasion of a sumptuous banquet, given in honor of the powerful consul Marc Antoine, Cleopatra finished dazzling her guest by dissolving the priceless pearl she wore in her ear, a jewel which was transmitted from dynasty to dynasty, in a cup of vinegar, which she drank before her eyes, in one gulp. The other pearl was sawn in half and offered as pendant earrings to the statue of Venus in the Pantheon.
Imitation, an ancient art
But do not believe that only pearls from the bottom of the sea and those worn by queens mark history. Although at the time the pearl trade from the Persian Gulf was in full swing, many suspect that that of Vermeer’s painting The Girl with a Pearl Earring (circa 1665) is too large to be natural. Imitation processes are old. In the XVIIe century, the Parisian pearl master Jacquin prepared artificial versions based on glass, wax and another surprising component: the silver scale of the bleak, a fish from our rivers.
It is therefore understandable that no period since the Upper Paleolithic has set it aside. Avant-garde and graphic in the flappers of the Roaring Twenties, neo-baroque to the ears of today’s queens of fashion or transgressive in an approach genderfluid, the pearl is a reflection of its time and different stories. That she is also seen as a symbol of chastity, innocence and humility is then gently laughing.
