FAUX PEARLS

History

A cultured pearl is a pearl created by a mussel farmer or oyster farmer under controlled conditions. Cultured pearls can be farmed using two very different groups of bivalve mollusk: the freshwater river mussels, and the saltwater pearl oysters.

A natural pearl is formed by nature, and they are rare to find. A natural pearl is created when a foreign object accidently enters a mussel or a shelled mollusk. The mussel/ mollusk now produces nacre also known as mother of pearl. The nacre now covers and coats the foreign object, the nacre build up in thin layers and will over time form a pearl. [1]

Cultured pearls are human creations formed by inserting a tissue graft from a donor mollusk, this creates a “nucleus”. The nucleus is then carefully inserted into another mussel, the mussel is then placed back into the water and it will coat the nucleus with thin layers of nacre/ mother of pearl. This process takes between 2-7 years for quality pearl. [2]

upon which a pearl sac forms, and the inner side precipitates calcium carbonate, in the form of nacre or "mother-of-pearl". The most popular and effective method for creating cultured pearls are made from the shells of freshwater river mussels

Kokichi Mikimoto, the son of a Japanese noodle maker, created the world's first cultured pearl in 1893 by manually introducing an irritant into an oyster to stimulate it to form a pearl. The introduction of cultured pearls in the early 1900s turned the whole pearl industry on its head and caused the value of natural pearls to plummet. [3]

Mikimoto is still one of the leading peal companies in the world, they made a partnership with Comme Des Garçons in 2020 and created a line of pearl necklaces.

The cultured pearls on the market today can be divided into two categories. The first category covers the beaded cultured pearls, including Akoya, South Sea, Tahiti and the large, modern freshwater pearl, the Edison pearl. These pearls are usually one pearl is grown at a time.

The second category includes the non-beaded freshwater cultured pearls, like the Biwa or Chinese pearls. As they grow in the mantle, where on each wing up to 25 grafts can be implanted, these pearls are much more frequent and saturate the market completely.

An impressive improvement in quality has taken place in the last ten years when the former rice grain-shaped pebbles are compared with the near round pearls of today. In the last two years large near perfect round bead nucleated pearls up to 15mm in diameter have been produced with metallic luster.[4]

ORIGINAL FROM NATIONAL MUSEUM COLLECTION

NECKLACE

Designed by: Karl-Ingmar Johansson
Material: Gold and cultured pearls
Size 37,5 cm
Year: 1927

Photo credit: Greta Lindström / Nationalmuseum

This necklace designed by Karl-Ingemar Johansson is a sign of its time. When the cultured pearl hit the market in the earl 1900s it gave jewelry designers the possibility to work with pearls in new ways. The cultured pearl was a fraction of the price of a natural pearl this resulted in bigger and longer pearl necklaces. The long pearl necklaces form the 20-ies could never have been created without Mikimotos invention.

Johansson,s pearl necklace is sparce and minimal just like most of Johansson,s jewelry. His classical designs often containing of one kind of stone and geometrical shapes. Johansson was a master of creating chains with clever mechanical solutions that easily followed the shape of the body.

re-designed NECKLACE

RE-DESIGN

I was in inspired by the process of creating a cultured pearl when I was redesigning Johansson,s pearl necklace.

The creation of a cultured pearl is a controlled process, the mussel/ oyster needs to be contained so that the producer can find them and care for them. This is done by placing the mussel/oyster in a cage, that is being held under water. The mussel/oyster can be seen as a surrogate hosting the pearl inside it, creating and protecting the delicate pearl.

Johansson,s pearl necklace already has a circular shape around the pearl and I have used this shape but expanded upon its expression and made it more cage like. This has all been done using CAD-design, which has given me the possibility to quickly draw sketches to and experiment with its design. The level of precision and the speed of this process could never have been achieved by using tradition goldsmith techniques.

process picture

3d-model of redesign

Download 3d-model

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Footnotes

[1] Nudelman, Fabio; Gotliv, Bat Ami; Addadi, Lia; Weiner, Steve (2006). "Mollusk shell formation: Mapping the distribution of organic matrix components underlying a single aragonitic tablet in nacre". Journal of Structural Biology. 153 (2): 176–87.

[2] "Pearl oyster farming and pearl culture". Fao.org. Archived from the original on March 20, 2008. Retrieved May 17, 2013.

[3] Jewelry from art nova to 3d printing

[4] Lazarus, Sarah (15 February 2018). "Pearl farming in Hong Kong: enthusiasts restock oyster beds in city waters to revive a 1,000-year-old industry". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 25 December 2018.

[5] Jewelry from art nova to 3d printing

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