Luxurious Vintage Earrings with South Sea Pearls & Tanzanites, c. 1985

The ancient author Pliny considered pearls to be the most precious good of all. In his *i**Naturalis Historia*, he recounts a wager between Cleopatra and Mark Antony: she claimed she could consume the equivalent of ten million sesterces in a single lavish banquet. To this end, she had a cup of vinegar brought to her at the appointed time. Before the eyes of the emperor, who was already certain of victory, she then removed one of her pearl earrings—and drank the liquid. The act was so shocking to those present that the referee, Lucius Plancus, hastened to declare her the winner of the bet—lest she sacrifice the second pearl as well. We have the Japanese entrepreneur Mikimoto to thank for the fact that large, round pearls like those set here were no longer reserved exclusively for queens in the 20th century; he invented modern pearl farming. For a long time, only Akoya pearls cultivated in Japan were available in a quality that could rival that of natural pearls. It wasn’t until the late 1970s that pearls from various countries south of Japan were added to the market. Japanese experts had successfully applied their knowledge of domestic pearl cultivation to the “Pinctada maxima” oyster—a species previously unused in Japan—which is capable of producing particularly large pearls: the “South Sea pearl” was born. These earrings date from the early days of South Sea pearl cultivation, when large pearl necklaces and earrings represented the pinnacle of luxury. Each earring features a particularly large, round South Sea pearl measuring more than 1.7 cm in diameter. Suspended from each of these precious treasures of the sea is a movable drop of tanzanite. The pearls’ meltingly silky luster perfectly complements the gemstone’s intense brilliance. Dating from the 1980s, these earrings are very good in condition and came to us from a prominent Stuttgart collection. To this day, they beautifully capture the opulent elegance of that decade.

Estimate:$10,098.4

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