Posted by Beth on October 24, 2015, 2:04 am, in reply to "Re: pearl necklace"
The pearls do seem to have the characteristics of South Sea pearls (colour, size etc); If they are South Sea pearls, I suspect that they are cultured pearls. I am fairly sure that they are "real", meaning cultured pearls, as when I zoomed in on the necklace some small blemishes are visible - so I don't think these are artificial pearls.
Even if cultured, they would be valuable; as they are uniform, have few blemishes and the colour is good.
From what I know about pearls, I doubt if these would originate from the time of Queen Maria Mercedes. If my knowledge is correct she died circa 1878 and at the time the majority of pearls in European collections came from the Gulf region and those pearls have a very different orient from the ones in Queen Letizia's necklace.
on October 24, 2015, 2:04 am, in reply to "