#3 daughter wanted to see what famous people wore the jewels, and was glad to see a picture of Good Queen Bess in her pearled finery. We have spent several months on the 16th C. in home school--you need to spend that much time, given the Reformation, the Age of Exploration, and the spectacular politics and personalities of the time. Queen Elizabeth I is her favorite. Elizabeth, having had a most precarious childhood and a very thin wardrobe budget before her accession, became the Renaissance equivalent of the compulsive shopper; she had a thousand gowns, so encrusted with jewels that the gowns could stand up by themselves. She encouraged early attempts to make artificial pearls; she was crazy about jewelry in general and pearls in particular.
#3 daughter also enjoyed Byzantine jewelry and a bird brooch made with two oddly shaped pearls, one for the head and one for the tail, with a golden body.
Speaking of gowns encrusted with jewels, the most spectacular items included a Nepalese pearl/papier mache/fabric/white plumed/gold/etc. crown, about 30 inches high, with a picture of the prince wearing it; a pearl and oval amethyst necklace from the Victorian Era--amethysts were the size of quarters; a Russian Orthodox priest's vestments which seem to have the same cut as a Mandarin robe, made of white floral brocade (all-over square pattern, about 1 inch, of white and yellow tiny buds) and 4-inch crosses of beryl and spinels and pearls in a line fown the front, seed pearls embroidered all over. Somebody must have worked for years on that. Lillian Russell's chrysanthemum Tiffany brooch, a hundred "petals" of thin oblong blister pearls. A pearl, gold, and fabric tarantula brooch, life sized, made with two huge red conch pearls for the body, meant to be worn on somebody's shoulder, presumably a very expensive way of "freaking out the mundanes." A high society wedding gown, 1966, with swirls of pearls sewn in, by the designer, Priscilla (Sombody) of Boston, who created wedding gowns for Trisha and Julie Nixon and Lucie Johnson. Ugliest piece: boots from some performance in the last 20 years, white stringy fur at the top and a zillion pearl buttons sewn on.
Today I learned that conch shells produce irregular orange and pink pearls; that "black" pearls can be blue and green--the color of pearl is often determined by the species of mollusk that produces it. I learned that the cultured pearl industry uses 200 tons a year of American freshwater mussel shells for the culturing "seed," and that the culturers cut a thin slice of the nacre-producing membrane, painted with antibiotic solution, to stimulate the production of nacre to form the pearl. I also learned that the Japanese historically liked mother of pearl but didn't appreciate individual pearls until contact with the outside world showed them a very lucrative market for them. In Papua New Guinea, explorers reported that children used large pearls as marbles!
#2 son had fun with the interactive exhibit that allowed him to control magnification of the electron microscope shot of the crystal structure of the pearl. Seems the pearl is formed of aragonite, which is like layer upon layer of hexagonal crystals, like flat sheets of terrazo tile stacked. The aragonite and conchiolin (my new word for the day) that form the layers of the pearl are translucent. Some light that strikes the pearl bounces off directly, but some of the light penetrates a layer or two before bouncing back. This reflection gives the illusion that the pearl itself is glowing.
If you live within driving distance of Milwaukee, go see this before it closes in late June. Unfortunately this is the last stop for the show.
A brief plug for museum memberships: I find that these pay for themselves. If you use a museum twice a year, and if you go to museums when you travel, odds are very good that you'll find a museum that accepts your membership. Our Milwaukee Public Museum membership gets us into the Louisville Science Center and the Museum of Science and Industry and Field Museums in Chicago, among others. When we took all 5 kids to museums, one trip a year paid for itself. Now our older kids are too cool to go with us, so it takes two trips to pay for itself. Only time we got skunked on the deal: Shedd Aquarium withdrew access for Milwaukee Zoo memberships, and a trip to the Shedd for two adults and three of our kids cost \$75--same as a membership. Rules are that members can choose whether to accept memberships if the other museum is within 100 miles. This explains why the MPM and Discovery World, which share a lobby, don't share memberships.
The membership also saves you a bundle on special exhibits. "Treasures of Egypt" was $18 a head last summer and \$11.50 for kids; but only \$5 a head with a membership. To see "Pearls: A Natural History" is \$14.50 for a non-member adult but only about \$4 for a member. Also big savings on IMAX tickets.
Go see the Pearls exhibit, and plan on taking your time.
mrs james
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