Pearls, V&A - exhibition review
Elizabeth Taylor’s pearl earrings and George III’s headlamp-flashy pearl and enamel buttons glisten among a plethora of pearly things. Didactic at the start, the V&A’s autumn exhibition dispels the long-standing myth about bits of grit getting stuck in oysters to explain that natural pearls are caused by tapeworms slipping inside bivalves as they filter water. The gentle creatures retaliate by encasing the parasite in a sarcophagus of nacre. A slow revenge, but sure, as a shimmering turquoise abalone shell, complete with its abaloned worm, proves. There is a good film of the last ever pearl dive off the coast of Qatar, and a pearl-dealer’s case, containing cheap grading sieves. This is the sharp end of glamour. It takes 2,000 oysters to yield just one sea-water pearl.
The exhibition’s final section looks at Kokichi Mikimoto, son of a Japanese noodle-maker, who invented good-quality cultured pearls. Baseball legend Joe DiMaggio gave a blandly milky strand to Marilyn Monroe, in a pedestrian case. But restraint plays a part in allure, for a modern Mikimoto scarf of 5,000 pearls is pure Liberace.
The middle section is the most thrilling: a glittering, helpfully chronological cavalcade of luxurious jewellery, from Roman and Byzantine earbobs and bangles (Pliny lamented female lust for pearls) to the single, squat pearl earring worn by Charles I at his execution. The Renaissance’s witty fondness for wonky “baroque” pearls (a lion of pearl and gold is particularly sweet) is recaptured with similar wit by modern jeweller Geoffrey Rowlandson in Grand Jete. After this comes unstinting 18th- and 19th-century greed for the nacrous blobs.
By the 19th century, seed-pearls were manipulated into naturalistic designs, such as grape bunches; but the big ones, along with flamboyant diamonds, went into tiaras. The display case of which is surely visible from outer space.
Open from Sep 21-Jan 19 (020 7942 2000, vam.ac.uk)
