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Lot 8301
Rare Melo Pearl
4 December 2005, 11:00 PST
Los AngelesSold for US$19,975 inc. premium
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Find your local specialistRare Melo Pearl
Saltwaters near Vietnam
Relatively unknown in the West, even George Kunz’s compendium of 1908, The Book of The Pearl, had no references to the rare orange pearl offered here. So few have been found, it is no wonder.
A relative of the conch, the Melo melo volutidae is also a gastropod—a marine snail that produces orange pearls the color of a ripe papaya. The snail generates a pearl-like substance to enclose foreign bodies entering its shell. Orange and pink pearls are “non-nacreous”, which means they do not have a layer of calcium carbonate on their outer surface as white pearls do. When examined closely under a light, the orange and pink pearls display a fiery texture, giving them a unique beauty lacking in other varieties of pearls.
They are found in the waters of picturesque Halong Bay (meaning Bay of Dragons), along the northern coast of Vietnam in deep waters almost 15 hours from the shoreline. Although edible, they are not typically fished for food because of the difficulties of retrieval. The pearls are normally found in the flesh of the mollusks and the yield is extremely small. Several thousand shells would have to be opened to obtain one reasonable pearl, particularly one of the size of the present example.
The pearl was one of the eight precious emblems of the Buddha. As a sacred object, these pearls were never drilled or strung as beads. Instead they were used as objects of devotion. The “fiery pearl”— a pearl with a flaming tail and the Dragon are both ubiquitous in Vietnamese decorative arts, found in ceramics, textiles and painting.
A strong cantelope-orange color and excellent luster characterizes this large and perfectly spherical, undrilled pearl from the rare melo melo volute. Weighing approximately 31.38 carats and measuring 16mm.
Relatively unknown in the West, even George Kunz’s compendium of 1908, The Book of The Pearl, had no references to the rare orange pearl offered here. So few have been found, it is no wonder.
A relative of the conch, the Melo melo volutidae is also a gastropod—a marine snail that produces orange pearls the color of a ripe papaya. The snail generates a pearl-like substance to enclose foreign bodies entering its shell. Orange and pink pearls are “non-nacreous”, which means they do not have a layer of calcium carbonate on their outer surface as white pearls do. When examined closely under a light, the orange and pink pearls display a fiery texture, giving them a unique beauty lacking in other varieties of pearls.
They are found in the waters of picturesque Halong Bay (meaning Bay of Dragons), along the northern coast of Vietnam in deep waters almost 15 hours from the shoreline. Although edible, they are not typically fished for food because of the difficulties of retrieval. The pearls are normally found in the flesh of the mollusks and the yield is extremely small. Several thousand shells would have to be opened to obtain one reasonable pearl, particularly one of the size of the present example.
The pearl was one of the eight precious emblems of the Buddha. As a sacred object, these pearls were never drilled or strung as beads. Instead they were used as objects of devotion. The “fiery pearl”— a pearl with a flaming tail and the Dragon are both ubiquitous in Vietnamese decorative arts, found in ceramics, textiles and painting.
A strong cantelope-orange color and excellent luster characterizes this large and perfectly spherical, undrilled pearl from the rare melo melo volute. Weighing approximately 31.38 carats and measuring 16mm.