Djibouti Pearl Diamond Fashion Jewelry 8

Djibouti Pearl Diamond Fashion Jewelry.

By Aamir Mannan. 

The V&A’s fall exhibition is titled simply Pearls: no more is needed to evoke the most elegant of jewels. From the neck of our grandmothers to Audrey Hepburn’s Breakfast at Tiffany, pearls are truly timeless. Handed down from a generation to the next, they defy change with their candid sheen. Yet, for all its dreamy atmosphere, the V&A’s exhibition reveals that the most coveted of jewels has a long and adventurous history.

The exhibition’s portrayal of the history of pearls begins – perhaps too Eurocentrically – with the tradition of the ‘cabinet of curiosities,’ the encyclopaedic microcosms constructed by early modern princes and scholars. Reflecting man’s privileged place in God’s creation, the cabinets juxtaposed the creations of art and nature, with one always trying to outdo the other in a battle of conceits. Fished from the seas yet selected and mounted with matchless artistry, pearls captured the transition of human creation into divine

nature. They were irresistible, as shown in Jeanne de Marigny’s portrait, where all attention goes to her pear-lined satin dress.