Nature’s Repository? Pearl Fishing and Environments in the Americas and Asia in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

Abstract: The early modern period was “the great age of pearls.” Portraits of rulers, aristocrats and elites in both Europe and Asia show the abundant use of pearls in jewellery and clothing. Sought after for their lustre and their symbolism, pearls were a marine material transformed into the most astonishing works of ornamentation. Yet, pearls were also a natural resource produced by oysters harvested by the millions from the warm tropical waters of the Americas and the Indian Ocean. The case of pearl fishing off the coast of Venezuela in the early sixteenth century by the Spanish, highlights... Mehr ...