Paradox of Pearls

Pearls and Power

Pearls worn by royalty and aristocrats evoke wealth, style, and legitimacy. Yet elite women in pearls were also understood to be exchangeable commodities—dolls, puppets, and mannequins—who signified the prosperity of their husbands and fathers.

William Hoare
Portrait of Maria Walpole
Pastel
ca. 1742
LWL Ptg. 152 
The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

One of three illegitimate daughters of Edward Walpole, Maria Walpole was famous for her beauty, and she married the much older Lord Waldegrave in 1759. After his death in 1766, she became the wife of Prince William Henry, duke of Gloucester, in a secret ceremony, seeding a scandal that contributed to the subsequent passage of the Royal Marriages Act of 1772, which required all royal descendants to seek permission from the king before marriage. In this pastel Maria Walpole is dressed lavishly in a yellow cloak trimmed with ermine. Pearls outline the bodice of her lace gown and appear entwined in lush strands of her dark hair. Horace Walpole recalled Lady Waldegrave wearing pearls at a masquerade: “A fair widow who once bore my whole name and now bears half of it, was there with one of those whom the newspapers call great personages; he dressed like Edward IV she like Elizabeth Woodville in grey and pearls with a black veil.” (Letter to Mann, February 27, 1770). Lady Waldegrave’s dress and jewelry underscore the blurred lines between costume and fashion as well as performance and authenticity.

Printmaker unidentified, after Thomas Frye
Her Most Excellent Majesty Charlotte Queen of Great Britain &c.,
Mezzotint
ca. 1762
Portraits C479 no. 2
The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

This wedding portrait of a young Queen Charlotte depicts her with a blindingly white complexion, draped in pearls and wearing elaborate pearl earrings, a multistrand pearl necklace, pearls across her dress’s bodice, and ropes of pearls hanging from her shoulders. Horace Walpole’s description of Charlotte’s costume captures the “weight” of her jewels: “The Queen was in white and silver; an endless mantle of violet-coloured velvet lined with ermine, and attempted to be fastened on her shoulder by a bunch of large pearls, dragged itself and almost the rest of her clothes half way down her waist. On her head was a beautiful little tiara of diamonds; a diamond necklace, and a stomacher of diamonds, worth threescore thousand pounds, which she is to wear at the Coronation too” (Letter to Mann, September 10, 1761, vol. 21.). The queen’s pearl overload is a matrimonial advertisement establishing her connection to empire, luxury, and whiteness.

William Charles
The Little Princess and Gulliver
Etching with stipple and aquatint and hand-coloring
Published October 21, 1803, by S.W. Fores
803.10.21.01
The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

An indignant seven-year-old Princess Charlotte stands with her fist raised over a large punch bowl in which a tiny figure of Napoleon Bonaparte flails, his hat floating behind him. The caption reads, “There you impertinent boasting swaggering pigmy,—take that, —You attempt to take my Grandpap’s crown indeed, and plunder all his Subjects, Fillet you know that the Spirit and Indignation of every Girl in the Kingdom is roused at your Insolence.” Charles’s caricature riffs on James Gillray’s “The King of Brobdingnag and Gulliver” (1803), which portrays a portly King George looking through a spy glass at his diminished enemy Napoleon, whom he holds in the palm of his hand. Charlotte wears a miniature portrait of her father, the prince of Wales, suspended from an enormous pearl necklace.

Thomas Johnson, after Joshua Reynolds
Lady Ann Campbell, Countess of Strafford, ca. 1760s
State 2
Mezzotint
Portraits St896 no. 1++
The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

This mezzotint after Sir Joshua Reynolds’s luxurious portrait of Lady Ann Campbell, countess of Strafford (ca. 1715–85), captures the sitter bedecked in pearls. Horace Walpole pronounced Lady Ann Campbell to be a “vast beauty” and wrote a poem idolizing her loveliness in 1765. The popularity of this widely circulated mezzotint highlights the role of aristocratic women in promoting fashion trends, particularly the styling of specific accessories. The mezzotint form, with its contrasting shadows, was ideally suited to representing the shimmering whiteness of pearls.

Isaac Cruikhank
The First Interview, or, The Presentation of the Prussian Pearl
Etching
Published December 19, 1791, by S.W. Fores
791.12.10.01+ Impression 1
The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

To an audience of royals and court onlookers, the duke of York presents his miniature puppet princess, “the Prussian Pearl” (Princess Frederica Charlotte of Prussia [1767–1820]) in a box. King George III, with Queen Charlotte seated by his side, peers through a looking glass at his prospective daughter in law. To his right is a large Mrs. Shwellenberg, and the royal princesses stand behind them. The box is labeled “13,000 and great expectations.” The princess is portrayed as an object to be displayed, looked at, and bargained for; she represents luxury, trade, and expectations for the kingdom. The princess’s role as a pearl/commodity also connects her to a legacy of royal women and their pearls.

 

John Smith, after John Closterman
Mr. Gibbons & Mrs. Gibbons
Mezzotint
Published by John Smith, ca. 1691
Portraits G441 no. 1
The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

This portrait in mezzotint, after a painting by John Closterman, of Grinling Gibbons, a well-known decorative woodcarver, and his wife Elizabeth, celebrates their prosperity and wealth. Seated in an idealized setting with classical columns and drapery and dressed in expensive fabrics evoking their elevated social position, Mr. Gibbons looks at the viewer with a self-confident smile. His wife gazes at him, acknowledging his success. The pearl necklace in her hands signals the luxury of disposable income. The necklace may also represent the precarity of holding on to something precious. The fact that the pearls are not fastened may imply that Elizabeth has just removed the necklace. Pearls also serve as an extension of Elizabeth’s body, highlighting her sexuality and reproductive role.

Nicholas Dixon
Portrait of Lady Anne Clifford, Countess of Dorset, 1669–1707
Watercolor in ebonized pearwood frame
LWL Min. 100

Nathanial Hone
Maria, Countess Waldegrave, c. 1765
Watercolor on ivory
LWL Min. 102

Artist unidentified
Mary Berry, ca. 1795
Watercolor on prepared card
LWL Min. 103

J.C.D. Engleheart
Unknown Lady in Mauve Dress with Pearls, 18th century
LWL Min 107

Samuel Shelley
Unknown Lady in White and Blue Dress with Pearls in Her Hair, 1770
Watercolor on ivory
LWL Min 139

Miniatures of known and anonymous figures wearing pearls provide examples of everyday self-fashioning. These tiny portraits evoke links to memories, gifts, keepsakes, and loss. Horace Walpole referred to his beloved wards, Mary and Agnes Berry, as “two pearls in his path.” Describing the Berry sisters as precious pearls connects them to purity, uniqueness, and sentimental value.

George Perfect Harding
Lucy Waters, ca. 1800
Watercolor
Drawings H263 no. 7
The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

Serenissima Carolina D.G. Mag. Bri. Fran: et Hib. Regina
In Portraits of Ladies in Mezzotint: After the Paintings of Famous Artists from Anthony Vandyck (1599–1641) to Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792) (England: 1684–1799).
Folio 75 P839 800, vol. 1, leaf 5
The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

Artist unidentified
Nell Gwyn
Gray wash
In an extra-illustrated copy of Anthony Hamilton, Memoirs of Count Grammont. vol.3 (London: S. and E. Harding, 1793[?]), opp. p. lxxx
Quarto 27 19 793B copy 2
The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

George Perfect Harding
Queen Elizabeth. From an original by Hilliard, in the collection of Lord Viscount Grimston, 1813
Opaque watercolor
In an extra-illustrated copy of Horace Walpole, A Description of the Villa . . . at Strawberry Hill, 1784
Quarto 33 30 Copy 25, leaf 104
The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

Pictures of ladies, queens, and actresses in pearls, both large and small, showcase a range of women across social hierarchies wearing pearls in a variety of ways. From Queen Caroline’s swath of majestic pearls included in a large bound volume of mezzotints of Portraits of Ladies, to a small illustration of Queen Elizabeth I in her signature pearls, to an oval reproduction of a portrait of the actress Nell Gwyn with her breasts exposed and pearls in her loosely flowing hair, these images suggest that pearls uniquely represented the complexities of female identity during this period.