This video guides us through the history of the privileged classes’ love affair with pearls, beginning at 1,000 BCE, and into Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Victorian era and the Jazz Age.

Along the way, we also learn the importance of pearls in Chinese and Indian history, and are brought up to speed on the revolutionary cultured pearls created by Kōkichi Mikimoto.

View the original video here.