Want to learn about the early modern pearl industry? Check out Dr. Mónica Domínguez Torres’s chapter “Mastery, Artifice, and the Natural Order: A Jewel from the Early Modern Pearl Industry” in The Oxford Handbook of History and Material Culture, published by the Oxford University Press. In the article, Domínguez Torres focuses on the materiality and industry of pearls, addressing “how these jewels articulated specific claims of authority and power” to reveal “the cognitive and aesthetic values that early modern collectors placed on such objects.” This article directly relates to her forthcoming book, Pearls for the Crown: European Courtly Art and the Atlantic Pearl Trade, 1498-1720.
