Jewelry Pearls

The custom of giving presents of plate, often indistinguishable from bribes, to important persons appeared early. Already at the end of the thirteenth century the accounts of the wealthy and aristocratic cleric Bogo de Clare, who was notorious in a lax age for the number of livings which he had accumulated, show that in six months of the year 1285 he spent £21 : 4 : 8 on seven silver cups for presentation. In 1371 the City of London presented the Black Prince with a handsome gift of plate costing £ 173 : 8 : 11 on his return from Aquitaine. The position of a royal duke naturally entailed huge goldsmiths’ bills as may be judged from an order signed on 13 April 1373 by John of Gaunt at his palace of the Savoy. The delivery of the following handsome presents is commanded-to his brother the Black Prince and to his wife a gold cup each, to four other notables a silver-gilt cup apiece and to one a ewer as well, to another a silver box with the arms of England and Castille, all the work of the celebrated goldsmith Sir Nicholas Twyford. Two other persons received a silver-gilt cup and a ewer made by John Chichester, two more got a silver-gilt cup each by Thomas Rainham, whilst another two each received a silver-gilt cup by an unnamed goldsmith.

The extent to which the love of collecting plate was carried at the close of the Middle Ages can be traced in the inventory of the plate of Sir John Fastolf, taken after his death in 1459. He was a Norfolk man who had succeeded in accumulating a considerable fortune partly as a result of his distinguished services in the French Wars thirty years earlier, and partly through a fortunate marriage with a rich widow. His domestic silver weighed no less than 1175 lb. troy, whilst his chapel plate contributed. another 110 lb. Hardly less impressive is the detailed list of plate in the will prepared in 1509 by John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford, from which it appears that he possessed 1116 lb. troy of domestic silver as well as 108 lb. in the form of plate for his chapel. The inventory of royal plate composed in 1520 gives us a still more vivid impression of the wealth of goldsmiths’ work which then abounded in this country. Henry VIII was, indeed, a hardened and unscrupulous collector, as is shown by the number of items which are catalogued as having been forfeited on the execution of the Duke of Buckingham (’Ducke of buck’) and by those formerly belonging to his Boleyn ‘in-laws’ and to Wolsey which appear in the inventories of 1532 and 1550 in the Renaissance period.

The accumulation of plate was not entirely due to love of ostentation. Until about a hundred years ago the family plate was regarded merely as a reserve of capital which could be easily realized in an emergency. Such a realization almost inevitably consigned the plate to the melting-pot unless circumstances allowed it to be pledged. The forced loans which the Tudor and Stuart sovereigns repeatedly levied on the City formed a constant drain on the resources of the city companies which was very detrimental to their collections of plate. The Great Fire not only was the direct cause of the destruction of the plate of several companies but brought about the sacrifice of that of others in the cause of rebuilding the halls which had been destroyed. More spectacular was the general melting of plate which took place during the Civil War and under the Commonwealth, when vast hoards of plate belonging to owners whose economic stability in ordinary times would have been assured, were sacrificed voluntarily or involuntarily in the form of loans to support the cause of King or Parliament. On this occasion the collecting of plate was systematic and ruthless, the contributions varying according to the wealth of the owners from the I 06! oz. ‘lent’ to the Parliament by the gentry of the lathe of Aylesford, Kent, to the 1610 lb. provided for the King’s use by twelve of the Oxford colleges.

The use of domestic silver in the first half of the seventh century is attested by Bede, who records that St. Oswald, King of Northumbria, was served with food in a silver dish. A charter of Bertulf, King of Mercia, records the gift in the year 80 I of a large and finely worked silver dish to the Cathedral of Worcester, whilst amongst the extensive presents of plate made by Athelstan in 934 to the shrine of St. Cuthbert were two silver covered cups.

Though it is probable that plate never descended very far in the social scale in Anglo-Saxon England, it is likely that its use was as widespread in this country as anywhere else in Western Europe. There can be little doubt that the upper classes were well acquainted with the use of plate in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Ethelgiva (d. 985), wife of Earl Aylwin who founded Ramsey Abbey, is recorded to have presented its refectory with ‘two silver cups of twelve marks according to the weight of the husting of London’. William of Poitiers, when speaking of the spoils taken home by the Normans after the conquest of England, says ‘the vessels of silver or gold were marveled at, of which the number and decoration would be impossible to relate’. He adds that the English were great drinkers and favored especially ox-horns tipped at each end with metal. These drinking-horns are clearly depicted in the scene of Harold feasting in the Bayeux Tapestry. The Sutton Hoo ship-burial, discovered in 1939, yielded the British Museum the silver mounts of six to nine horns dating before the middle of the seventh century but no complete silver-mounted horn is yet known.

It is impossible to give with any certainty a list of the few surviving pieces of Anglo-Saxon domestic silver (excluding for the moment spoons), since a Continental origin has been claimed for all of them. A bowl in the Yorkshire Museum, York, which was found at Great Ormside, Cumberland, is certainly amongst the most interesting survivors. It is probably North English work of the beginning of the eighth century and is of silver and copper-gilt, embossed with birds and beasts and studded with enameled bosses. Still more attractive is the nielloed silver bowl from Fejø (Frontispiece, I) in the National Museum, Copenhagen. Its decoration of birds and beasts with fantastic interlacing seems to indicate that it was made in the south of England towards the end of the eighth century. An embossed silver bowl from Ribe in the National Museum, Copenhagen, a second from Halton Moor, Yorkshire, and a third with a cover, both in the British Museum, are perhaps more probably of Continental origin and are dated variously from the ninth to the beginning of the eleventh century.

A number of silver spoons of different dates and very various designs have been discovered. A little two-pronged fork in the British Museum, found at Sevington, Wiltshire, suggests a greater refinement than might be expected at the end of the ninth century when it appears to have been made.

However uncertain may be the extent of the use of domestic plate before the Norman Conquest, there can be no doubt that there was a steady increase in its popularity during the succeeding centuries. Plate was acquired not only to serve the everyday needs of the purchaser but also from other motives.

Amongst the more peaceful and picturesque activities of the goldsmiths was their devotion to St. Dunstan, who in his lifetime had certainly been a good patron of their craft and whom his Post-Conquest biographers credited both with a practical knowledge of their art and with the celebrated victory over a devil. In the saint’s honor the goldsmiths kept a light in the church of St. John Zacchary which remained the centre of the goldsmiths’ quarter up to the seventeenth century. On St. Dunstan’s Eve and twice on his day the members of the company went in procession to St. Paul’s in which was a chapel dedicated to their patron, and sustained themselves with a dinner in his honor at which was used a cup surmounted by his effigy. These functions came to an end at the Reformation, and in 1547 is recorded the destruction both of St. Dunstan’s Cup and of the silver gilt figure of the saint which adorned Goldsmiths’ Hall.

The history of the gild during the Renaissance was a checkered one. The latter part of the sixteenth and the early years of the seventeenth century saw a return of corporate prosperity but in 1627 the company was forced to sell plate to the value of £407 in order to pay its contribution to a forced loan which the King had levied on the City. During the Civil War period Goldsmiths’ Hall became the Parliament’s exchequer.

Besides its routine work of preserving the standard and purity of gold and silver work, the principal activity of the company during the Renaissance seems to have been a struggle to preserve the trade as far as possible in English hands and to limit the intrusion of foreigners-a matter to which we will have to recur later. In 1571 it was enacted that no craftsman might become a master until he had produced a ‘masterpiece’. The type of object to be made was not prescribed, as it was by some German gilds, and no piece made for this purpose has ever been identified. The custom had apparently fallen into disuse by 16°7 when it was reenacted with the professed aim of raising the standard of general proficiency amongst young craftsmen who, it was complained, were tending to specialize in the making of certain objects or the use of certain techniques and thus compared unfavorably with foreign workmen. It is unlikely that this order had more than a transient effect as the tendency to specialize certainly did not disappear.

Though the fortunes of individual goldsmiths could not remain unaffected by the political and religious changes, the times were certainly propitious. The prosperity of the London goldsmiths was shared by their provincial brethren whose gilds began to function with much greater efficiency than previously. The tendency for goldsmiths to seek prosperity outside the stricter limits of their profession became increasingly marked. Thus in 1589 John Spilman, a German, obtained a license to set up a paper-mill at Dartford, whilst in 16°9 Hugh Myddelton undertook the construction of the New River to supply London with water. The important part played by goldsmiths in the development of banking in this country was largely the unexpected result of the seizure by Charles Lin 1640 of the deposits of the precious metals which they and other merchants had been wont to store for safety in the Tower. This tyrannical act obliged goldsmiths henceforth to assume the responsibility for the keeping of their own reserves and forced them to construct strong-rooms in their houses. Before long they began to accept for safekeeping the money of their clients who at first paid for this privilege but soon began to receive interest in return for permitting the goldsmith the temporary use of their deposit.

When, with the Restoration, we enter the modern period in the history of English domestic silver we find the craft definitely fallen in popular esteem from its place amongst the major arts. This decline was for a time obscured by the important part played in the national affairs by the goldsmith bankers, but when the two professions became distinct in the eighteenth century the change in the status of the goldsmith is evident. The goldsmith, however great his artistic proficiency, had become no more than a superior craftsman or a prosperous tradesman. An increasing tendency towards specialization is visible both amongst firms and craftsmen, though much elasticity remained even to the end of our period. The decline in the social status of the goldsmith did not signify any decrease in the demand for his service and there can be no doubt of the general prosperity of the trade.

Another change which dates from the end of the seventeenth century is the gradual decline in the importance of the Goldsmiths’ Company in common with all the other City gilds. In 1679 the author of The Touchstone bewails the number of goldsmiths who chose to be members of other companies. The Goldsmiths’ Company, however, no longer excluded members of other crafts so that it is not surprising that it should gradually have come to take less and less interest in trade matters. It is not improbable that its prestige with members of the trade suffered at the close of the seventeenth century, from its inability to obtain from the Government any species of protection for the native craftsmen from the competition of the Huguenot goldsmiths who settled in this country in large numbers in the years following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Though at first the Company returned sympathetic answers to those who petitioned them to take action against the invaders, it became obvious after the Revolution that it was useless to attempt to persuade the Government, which owed its existence to the deposition of a Catholic king, to take action against industrious foreigners who had been driven from their country because they were Protestants.

Even though the collection of the revenues of the Company’s estates would appear to have been the main interest of the members during the eighteenth century, we must not overlook the fact that at this same period the efficiency of the assay-office was greater than ever before.

No work of art can be properly appreciated if it is considered entirely apart from its maker, and it is necessary, therefore, before approaching the subject of English domestic silver, to obtain some idea of the successive phases in the history of the craft of the workers in the precious metals.

The inclusion of what is called indifferently goldsmiths’ or silversmiths’ work amongst the minor arts (as opposed to the major arts of architecture, painting and sculpture) is a comparatively recent arrangement. Throughout the Middle Ages and down to the end of the sixteenth century goldsmiths ranked as highly as any other sort of artist but from the seventh to the eleventh century they had definitely been supreme.

It would be idle to pretend that the period during which the status of the goldsmith ranked highest, was also the greatest in the history of English domestic silver. Tragically few examples of the secular plate of this age have survived and contemporary records clearly show that the works of greatest importance were made in the service of the Church. This does not, of course, imply that the rich altar frontals, shrines and chalices which were made for wealthy abbeys were usually the work of monkish goldsmiths. A certain number of goldsmiths appear to have entered monasteries during the earlier part of the Middle Ages whilst monasticism still held a strong appeal for the popular imagination, but there is little evidence that skill as a goldsmith was often acquired by those who had already entered the cloister. The number and importance of goldsmith monks must not be exaggerated even though, in the remoter periods, their names have been recorded by monastic chroniclers more often than those of their lay contemporaries with whom they worked side by side in the abbey workshops. From the twelfth century, when Government records come to supplement monastic chronicles, we begin to see clearly how small is the number of the known monastic goldsmiths as compared to the lay.

It is important, then, to realize that the ordinary goldsmith, even in the early Middle Ages, was not a monk vowed to a life which relieved him of the normal cares of the struggle for existence but a layman following a highly skilled profession, of economic importance, and accounted remunerative. Since precious metals formed the raw materials of the goldsmith’s craft, it was always necessary that those who followed the profession should possess business as well as artistic talent. As a consequence the medieval goldsmith frequently did not confine himself to the production of plate and jewelry but dabbled in many lucrative side lines. Like the members of several of the other richer crafts they often acted as pawnbrokers. Their administrative, as well as their technical and artistic capacity, made them especially useful to-the Crown, particularly during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries when the machinery of government was becoming rapidly more complicated. At this time we find the royal goldsmiths not only providing the King with costly works of art but administering the mints and exchanges and supervising the erection and decoration of the royal buildings.

It is not, therefore, surprising that as early as 1180 the London goldsmiths should have had a gild of their own, for which they were fined the sum of 45 marks (which they probably never paid), because it had been founded without the royal license. It was not, however, until 1327 that they received their first charter from Edward III. It particularly ordained that the goldsmiths should all have their shops in the High Street of the Cheap (where the majority was already established) and that no silver or gold should be sold elsewhere in London than in the King’s Exchange or the Cheap. Complaint had been made that there had been goldsmiths working in obscure streets where, being free from supervision, they were able to buy and melt stolen plate and to manufacture new plate of base alloy which they were able to pass off on unwary customers. Of their later medieval charters that of 1462 is of great importance. In it the company was not only granted the use of a common seal but was entrusted with the supervision of the craft throughout England with power to punish offenders.

As a body it always ranked amongst the most powerful of the London gilds. In 1267 the Goldsmiths had their celebrated battle against the Taylors in which five hundred men are said to have been engaged (including those unattached to either gild) and which resulted a few days later in the hanging of a number of the combatants who had had the misfortune to be apprehended. Similar incidents are reported in later years. Numerically it never ranked amongst the greater gilds. In 1477 its membership was 198; including 41 foreigners, but in 1483 it had sunk to 149. In 1469 it was called upon to provide 100 men for the city watch, seven other companies having to provide a larger number. On the other hand seventeen goldsmiths had acted as lord mayor before the year 1524, several of whom had held office on more than one occasion.

Pearls have been extremely popular in the fashion world forever. Even the Egyptian beauty queen Cleopatra is said to be fond of her pearl necklace and the great Moguls cherished it as an object of immense value. During the earlier days, pearls were only available naturally in oysters. Pearl cultivation in a commercial way began much later.

Although at first, professional divers went down to the bottom of the sea to manipulate oysters in the hope of inducing them to produce pearl, the practice did not yield much. Thereafter a new way of pearl cultivation was developed. Farmers would insert sand or gravel inside the oyster to make it close down and cover the object with the material that produces pearls. But this method proved futile too, since steps were hardly taken to take care of the oyster or monitor the water in which the oyster or mussels lived. It was only during the late 19th and the early 20th century that Japanese researchers, notably K.Mikimoto perfected this method of pearl cultivation, and as a result, pearl cultivation really took off. These pearls are referred to as cultured pearls.

Pearl cultivation may be divided into two basic groups - Saltwater pearl cultivation and Freshwater pearl cultivation.

For pearl cultivation, four things are necessary. They are:

• A cultivation site (water clarity, warmth etc.),
• Mussels,
• Instruments to help the farmer, and
• The nuclei.

Pearl cultivation site can be a lake, river, irrigation canal or a restricted water body or even a pool. As for the mussels, the species vary according to locations, like in India and neighboring Bangladesh, the pearl mussels are the Lamellidens and the Perreysia. Again, of the above two species, Lamellidens marginalis is preferred as its overall size (7 to 10 cm) creates no problem for minor operations required in the process.

The instruments that are needed in pearl cultivation include a shell opener, graft cutter, nucleus carrier/lifter, graft carrier/lifter, spatula with a hook, mussel holder, pinchers, graft cutting board and a wooden peg. To obtain the pearl quickly, farmers use a nuclei or irritants, as they give faster results. The best material for the nuclei is made of shell as it has the same composition as that of the pearl. Sand is also be used as an alternative.

In pearl cultivation, the technique basically lies in the proper use of graft tissue and the nucleus. Graft tissue is nothing but a piece of the mantle and when this is grafted inside the body of the mussel, it will survive by attaching itself to the wall of the organ where it is introduced. Receiving nutrition there, it will function as part of the mantle, secreting shell substance or calcite, putting layers of the substance on the inserted nucleus. And in due time, the pearl can be scooped out of the mussel, washed, dried and made ready for the sale.

These days pearl farming is becoming more and more common with more people going into it. The profits are obviously attractive, but notwithstanding the profits, pearl farming has its own pitfalls and accompanying hazards including threat to the life of divers. Unlike other forms of farming like cattle farming, hog breeding or horse ranch, all practiced overland, pearl farming involves diving into sea depths of 100 to 130 feet and remaining under water for as long as three to four minutes. Though modern divers use equipment including oxygen tanks, eye gear, paddlers and others, some amount of physical threat always remain in pearl farming.

Looking at the crystal clear waters around the French Polynesian atolls, it may be difficult to imagine the dangers lurking underneath. But those who are into pearl farming knows that here in these waters, one of the best forms of pearls are produced. And that is why many are involved in pearl farming in these atolls, while the grafters’ laboratories are built on piles and located around the edge of the coral reef.

Rows of white buoys indicate the spats and the black buoys further out into the lagoon show the sign of pearl oyster banks where pearl farming takes place.

This is how the pearl farming process works:

• Production cycle begins with the cultivation of spats that provides the best pearl oysters. They need careful tendering, sorting and calibration through their period of growth before they go to the grafting process.
• Young oysters are first placed in saltwater tanks in the laboratory where grafters perform tricky surgical operations. This grafting process can only start two to three years after the pearl farming process has started.
• Grafting is a fragile process that starts by cutting small squares from the mantle of the donor oyster, and inserting a piece along with the mussel shell nucleus, into the oyster’s Gonad. The Gonad has been opened for this specialized operation.
• The oyster is then physically massaged to facilitate the healing process.
• Oysters are then placed in specially fabricated nets, allowing them to be located in various parts of the lagoon.
• Pearl farming also means constant monitoring to ensure that the oysters are doing fine.

Needless to say, pearls that are produced through pearl farming under such meticulous care surpass in quality, shape, size, color and luster as compared to those occurring under natural circumstances. Products from pearl farming fetch handsome prices in the market and carry the goodwill of the farm where they come from. Some experts believe that the best nuclei come from mussels that are grown in the Mississippi river in the US. But there are other rich areas of pearl farming as well.

Birthstone for June, pearls are recognized as the emblem of modesty, chastity and purity. They have also come to symbolize a happy marriage and hence it is no wonder that pearl jewelry is much preferred by girls during their engagement days or by brides as their primary jewelry. Besides, pearls are the only gems created by a living organism having an array of fascinating colors, shapes, sizes and origin and hence have a charm of its own. Pearl jewelry is often found as family heirlooms, passed on from a grandmother to mother and from a mother to the daughter.Being the most magical and feminine of all gems, pearl jewelry has long been considered as one of the most romantic items that can be gifted to a lady. As a matter of fact, a pearl necklace set goes beautifully well with any neckline, whatever the attire could be.

However, natural pearls are rare and their price tags forbid many and so, most of the pearl jewelry sold now is made of cultured pearls though one could hardly tell the difference between a good quality cultured pearl and a natural pearl.

Cultured pearls come in two primary forms - pearls that are grown in saltwater and those that are cultured in freshwater. Since saltwater cultured pearls are much higher in quality as compared to their freshwater cousins, saltwater cultured pearl jewelry is much more expensive. Cultured pearl jewelry is usually available as pearl necklace, pearl earrings, pearl pendants, pearl rings, pearl bracelets and so on. Pearl jewelry forms a perfect wedding present, birthday or Christmas gift. Also, it can work as a classic accessory for the bride in the form of a superb bridal pearl set consisting of pearl earrings and a finely crafted pearl necklace.

Cultured pearls come in a wide array of colors, shapes and sizes and their assortments are equally fascinating. To satisfy the customer craze, jewelers produce such artistic costume jewelry ranging from smallish Akoya pearls to big black Tahitian pearls, Japanese Mikimoto pearls, South Sea pearls and the spherical Mabe pearls – each of these items seem as good as the other, making the buyer spoilt for choices. And that is why purchasing pearl jewelry can be a tricky business if you are not fully familiar with the various available options, quality and the price structure of the various kinds of pearls. So perhaps the best way to secure pearl jewelry is to buy from a source that offers a return warranty if at least the quality is not satisfactory.

Incidentally, there was a time when pearl jewelry was rated as one of the highest priced items but with the advent of widespread pearl farming now, the price of pearl jewelry has become quite affordable to most people.