Culture

An immersive exhibition of the work of fashion photographer Tim Walker recently opened at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Tim Walker: Wonderful Things showcases over 300 items, encompassing photographs and the V&A objects that inspired them, short films, photographic sets and props, scrapbooks and sketches.

Designed by Shona Heath and curated by Susanna Brown, the show celebrates the creative genius of one of the UK’s most inspiring photographers and follows his previous success at Somerset House in 2013 with Tim Walker: Story Teller.

Heath’s spectacular design guides visitors on a journey through Walker’s enchanted world. Text written by Walker celebrates the talents of the many collaborators who help bring his ideas to life, including stylists and creatives Katy England, Amanda Harlech and Jerry Stafford, hair and make-up artists Sam Bryant, Malcolm Edwards and Hungry/Johannes Jaruraak.



Image 1: Tim Walker, Lil' Dragon, Ling Ling and the Dragon
Image 2: Snuff box, The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Collection on loan to the V&A

Exploring Walker’s contribution to the world of fashion photography, the show opens with a series of images selected from 25 years of magic making for internationally renowned magazines and journals. Highlights from the ‘Retrospective’ gallery include the remarkable set of images that unfolded from the young Walker’s love of Alice in Wonderland, a fantastical musing on the fairyland of his imagination, fueled by a very English upbringing.

Inspired by Peter Pan and Kit WIlliam’s Masquerade, Walker found in Shona Heath, his long term collaborator, a creative mind to match his ambition for sets and landscapes of remarkable complexity. These images have led him to be described as the Cecil Beaton of his generation.

At the heart of Tim Walker: Wonderful Things are 10 major new photographic projects, directly influenced by treasures in the V&A’s vast collection. A hugely inspiring and unique approach to uncovering his creative process, these commissions place this show firmly in the “must-see” category for what is an impressive autumn season for museums in London.



Image 1: Tim Walker, Pen & Ink, Duckie Thot, Aubrey’s shadow
Image 2: The Peacock Skirt, Aubrey Beardsley, 1894

In preparation for the exhibition, Walker visited object stores and conservation studios, meeting many of the museum’s curators, conservators and technicians. He scoured the V&A’s 145 public galleries, scaled the roof of the 12-acre South Kensington site, and explored the labyrinth of Victorian passages below ground level.

Along the way, he encountered luminous stained-glass windows, vivid Indian miniature paintings, jewelled snuffboxes, erotic illustrations, golden shoes, and a 65-metre-long photograph of the Bayeux Tapestry, the largest photograph in the museum’s collection. These and many other rare artefacts have inspired Walker’s monumental new photographs.

“To me, the V&A has always been a palace of dreams,” says Tim Walker. “It’s the most inspiring place in the world. The museum’s collection is so wide and eclectic, and I think that’s why it resonates with me so much. Many of the objects that I saw during my research at the museum made my heart swell and I wanted to try to create a photograph that would relate not only to the physical presence and beauty of that object, but also to my emotional reaction to it. ”



Image 1: Tim Walker Cloud 9, Radhika Nair
Image 2: Krishna and Indra, Lahore, about 1590

Susanna Brown, Curator of Photographs at the V&A, says, “Tim has a wildly inquisitive mind and a boundless energy, he never stops innovating and these new pictures are some of the most spectacular he has ever made.”

Be sure to also look out for some of the original artefacts from the V&A collection that inspired Walker’s creative imagination. A stunning snuffbox and original Aubrey Beardsley illustrations amongst others and a fabulous Super-80 medley of behind the scenes ‘making of’ sequences are must-see highlights.

Tim Walker: Wonderful Things is at the V&A from 21 September 2019 to 8 March 2020. For more details, please visit the V&A website.

The legend of La Peregrina, one of the world’s most famous natural pearls, suggests that it was found in the mid-16th century near the island of Santa Margarita in the Gulf of Panama by an African slave, who was rewarded for his find with freedom.

At the time this extraordinary pear-shaped pearl was also one of the largest ever found, measuring approximately 17.5mm by 25.5mm and weighing over 11 grams before it was cleaned and drilled.

Don Pedro de Temez, the administrator of the Spanish colony, recognised the pearl's importance and brought it to Spain, where he gave it to the future king - Philip II of Spain. At this time the pearl began an incredible journey of ownership and it remains today one of the oldest and best documented historical jewels.

Philip presented with La Peregrina to Mary I of England, his future wife. Mary wore the pearl as a pendant suspended from a brooch, a jewel she can be seen wearing in a series of portraits from the period. After Mary’s death in 1558, the pearl was returned to the Spanish court where it remained for 250 years, and was worn by the wives of Kings Phillip III and IV.



Image 1: Mary Tudor, original artwork by Antonis Mor 1519-1575
Image 2: Elizabeth Taylor, c.1972

In 1808, when Napoleon installed his brother Joseph Bonaparte as King of Spain, the pearl found its way to France. In 1848 the pearl finally made its way to England into the Estate of James Hamilton, Duke of Abercorn. It was during this time it was given the name La Peregrina, which means the “Pilgrim” or “Wanderer”.

La Peregrina remains one of the largest perfectly symmetrical pear-shaped pearls in the world. The Hamiltons sold the pearl for $37,000 at Sotheby’s in 1969 to Richard Burton, as a Valentine Day's gift for Elizabeth Taylor.

It was the exquisite heirloom that sealed one of Hollywood's most tempestuous love stories. Drop and pear-shaped pearls are often made into pendants, but during its history La Peregrina was worn as a brooch, a pendant to a necklace, the centrepiece of a necklace and even a hat ornament. Taylor commissioned Al Durante of Cartier in 1972 to design a ruby and diamond necklace mount for the pearl. The complete piece is quite stunning and truly one of a kind.

When Taylor died, La Peregrina was sold at auction by Christies in 2011 to raise funds for the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation, which was established by Taylor to help provide direct services throughout the world for people living with AIDS.

Christies estimated the value of La Peregrina to be between $2 million and $3 million, making Lot 12 the second highest valued lot of the auction. In a fitting tribute to the memory of Elizabeth Taylor, the auction of legendary jewels surpassed all expectations, with the sale of La Peregrina for $11,842,500 creating two new world auction records for a historic pearl and for a pearl jewel.

Where, we wonder, will the next stage of its historic journey be taking the Wanderer to?

This spring, the V&A Museum in London celebrates the magnificence of the legendary Ocean Liners. Symbols of the technological advancement and celebration of luxury that defined the early 20th century,  the Ocean Liners also gained notoriety for tales of human tragedy.

The exhibition takes its audience on a journey from the Belle Epoque to Art Deco, illustrating the way in which these monumental feats of engineering facilitated waves of entrepreneurship and the global movement of wealth during these periods.

The era was defined by its innovation, glamour and audacity, providing a canvas for highly crafted, extravagant interiors and for the ostentatious glamour of their upper class travelers.



Image 1: Duke and Duchess of Windsor's luggage, Goyard, about 1950
Image 2: Paquebot, Paris, Charles Demuth, United States 1921-22

The exhibition showcases objects from the emotive deckchairs of the downed Titanic, to the iconic graphics that the industry supported, the legendary luggage of Goyard and glittering flapper dresses of the 1920s.

The Cartier Tiara

One of the most famous jewels displayed in this current exhibition is the Allen Tiara, commissioned from the legendary house of Cartier in 1909 by the Canadian banker and shipping magnate Sir Hugh Allan, as a gift for his wife Marguerite.

As with the Ocean Liners themselves, Cartier’s graphic combination of platinum, white diamonds and pearls came to symbolise the jewellery fashions of this generation.

The Allen Tiara was designed as an open work band in the Greek key style, millegrain-set with round faceted diamonds, inside an outer border of natural pearls, and framing an old mine-cut diamond at the centre.



Image: Diamond and pearl tiara saved from the Lusitania, Cartier, Paris 1909

The Cartier diamond tiara was fatefully taken by Lady Allen on board the Lusitania, travelling from New York to Liverpool, where she was accompanied by two of her three daughters, Anna and Gwendolyn, two maids, and a host of luggage.

The Sinking of the Lusitania

Cunard’s Lusitania began operational service in 1907, the largest and certainly one of the fastest ocean liners crossing the North Atlantic. Although the Lusitania was considered for requisition by the British Government at the start of the First World War, the liner was ruled out due to the immense quantities of coal that such a large ship would consume, at a time when endurance rather than speed was becoming important.

The Lusitania continued to operate as a commercial liner, carrying thousands of passengers back and forth from Europe to America.

Early in 1915, Germany declared the sea around Britain to be a war zone. Although, the German Embassy placed a warning on an advertisement for the Lusitania’s May 1915 voyage that Lady Allen was destined to board,  many felt that the ship’s speed made her safe.



Image 1: Marlene Dietrich onboard the Queen Elizabeth, arriving in New York, 21 December 1950
Image 2: Detail of silk georgette and glass beaded Salambo dress, Jeanne Lanvin, Paris 1925

Perhaps Sir Hugh Allen’s long family association with the shipping industry gave his wife the encouragement to continue with her voyage? It was to prove a tragic decision; Lady Allen lost both of the daughters as the Lusitania was struck by a German torpedo.

Sinking within 18 minutes, the liner’s celebrated speed was one of the very factors that contributed to the significant loss of life as many of the lifeboats were dragged under water - only 791 of the 1,989 who travelled that day survived. Heartbreakingly, the tiara itself was rescued from the wreckage by one of the Allen’s maids.

The Plant Mansion and Necklace

Pierre Cartier was symbolic of an era of global travel and international business. Establishing the American office of his father’s Parisian jewellery business on Fifth Avenue in 1908, it was from New York that he built the company into the legendary brand name that it is today.

Cartier’s current flagship store in the city was originally built in 1905 for Morton F Plant, a wealthy railroad magnate, by architect Robert W. Gibson. Morton Plant’s wife Maisie encountered Cartier in 1917, becoming enamoured by a double-strand necklace of 128 flawless natural pearls.



Image: Wooden wall panel from the Beauvais deluxe suite on the Île de France, 1927

Cartier offered her husband a trade—the $1 million rare necklace plus $100 for the 52nd Street and Fifth Avenue mansion which would become his new boutique. At the time of the deal, the Plant’s home was valued at $925,000.

The End of an Era

It was not to prove a good deal for the Plants. Only a few short years later, the value of Mrs Plant’s pearls would dramatically decrease. Across the seas in Japan, Kokichi Mikimoto began to take his cultured pearls beyond Tokyo to international markets. Mikimoto launched his first overseas store in London in 1915, transforming the market for pearls as we know it today.



Image: Titanic in dry dock, c1911

As cultured pearl technology and farming overtook the natural pearl, and greatly broadened the market for these gems, so too would ocean travel for the super rich be superseded by the aeroplane. On 1st January 1914, the St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line became the world's first scheduled passenger airline service, marking the beginning of the end of the era of seaborne glamour.

An unique opportunity to revisit this sophisticated form of travel, the V&A exhibition 'Ocean Liners: Speed and Style' continues until 17th June 2018.

Breathing Colour, the new show by Hella Jongerius at London’s Design Museum, is the culmination of 15 years of research by one of the Netherlands' most renowned designers.

Graduating from the Eindhoven Design Academy in the early 1990s, Hella Jongerius was part of a generation of young designers exploring the boundaries between conceptual design, industrial production and emotional engagement in objects. Breathing Colour takes a sustained look at the behavior of colour – on flat and three-dimensional surfaces, and across the arc of a day – and our emotional response to it.



Taking Monet’s Haystack as a starting point, Jongerius makes a case for embracing the way in which colours change at different stages of light intensity across a 24-hour period. She explains, “There is a phenomenon in colorimetry called Metamerism. This was the starting point in my colour research. It occurs when colours are viewed in different conditions, and describes the effect when two colours appear to match even though they might not actually do so.”

Jongerius goes on to explain that much industrial colour research has focused on eradicating what is viewed as a problem, towards a goal of achieving ‘consistent’ colours, “but I want to make a plea to use layered pigments which provide intense colours that are allowed to breathe with changing light,” she states.



Designed to capture these subtle shifts of light, Jongerius’s Colour Catchers form the spine of the show. Beginning life as complex cardboard patterns, before being realised as large-scale ceramic forms, their convex faceted surfaces absorb and reflect colour to become a series of three-dimensional colour charts – revealing gradations of the object’s own colour, affected by light and mixed with reflections from their surrounding forms.



The exhibition sets out to demonstrate how emotionally powerful and engaging it can be to see colour play a mutable role in the design of objects. Beginning in the ‘Morning’, Jongerius captures the hazy quality of dawn light in textile panels and colour crystals, followed by the blue glow of sunrise into the warm intensity of ‘Noon’.

A series of woven panels, the Woven Movie, inspired by Bauhaus textile designer Anni Albers, capture this shift in the depth of colour, supported by a series of projections that capture the shadow play of midday.



The ‘Evening’ section is a striking exploration of black, a focus of Jongerius’s research for two decades. Rejecting the industrial use of carbon to create black, Hella Jongerius reminds us that there are over ten alternative ways to create darker hues by optically mixing a limited palette of yarns, textures and materials.



Towards the end of the exhibition, Jongerius presents her Colour Vases a series of 100 unique works from 2010 as part of her studio’s research into minerals and oxides, no longer industrially used as a source of pigmentation due to their instability.



The vases capture perfectly Jongerius’s plea for colours to play a living role. Jongerius argues that industrial fixing and standardized colour have narrowed our experiences of colour and its cultural meanings.

Breathing Colour by Hella Jongerius brilliantly explores how we relate to colour in a more intimate and personal way. The exhibition is open at the Design Museum, London until 24th September 2017. For more information, or to book tickets, follow the link here.

Winterson's Creative Director Alice Cicolini takes a retrospective glance at the celebrated Al Thani collection of jewellery. The exhibition, which first appeared in Bejewelled Treasures at London's Victoria & Albert Museum, is set to open this Spring at the Grand Palais, Paris in March 2017.

The Al Thani Collection is a unique collection of jewels from an unusually broad chronological period that spans the Mughal period of the early 1600s to the present day. With such a diverse group of objects to select from, the V&A exhibition's curator Susan Stronge paints an impressive, if partial, picture of the development of Indian jewellery techniques and tastes.

Jewellery in Mughal society

The focus in the early part of the exhibition emphasises the almost ubiquitous presence of gemstones and jewellery throughout the Mughal court: from fly whisks and wine cups, to backscratchers and huqqa bases. The prevalence of precious and semi-precious gems led visitors to India in this period to remark on the magnificence of courtly life, its gem-encrusted thrones and imperial bodies that sparkled with jewels.

Hindu rulers lived under clear instruction as to the importance of establishing of an almost God-like regal body politic, through dress, jewellery and grooming. This remarkable profusion of jewellery, which their Mughal successors appeared to share, went far beyond the ruling classes to encompass men and women at all levels of society.



Image 1: Spinel and pearl necklace
Image 2: Silk sword sash with jewelled gold fittings

This is very revealing of the important role that jewellery played, not simply in the creation of status, but in what modern historian Daud Ali has described as “the spiritual and literary life of Indian societies” and the “association of jewels with light, virtue and beauty”. It is in early Sanskrit texts such as the arthashastra and brihatsamhita that the spiritual, cultural and healing values of stones, grading & assessment and jewellery techniques began to be established.

A love for pearls and gems

Many of these central tenets of gemlore still inform contemporary Indian jewellery making and buying practice, today with the navratna, or nine-stones, continuing to play a alismanic role in jewellery culture. Of these, the five great stones, or mahararatnani, - diamond, pearl, ruby, sapphire and emerald - dominate Indian jewellery culture as they did several hundred years ago.

As a result, for pearl lovers the Bejewelled Treasure exhibition offers a wealth of extremely fine examples. Visitors to India frequently remarked on the ropes of pearls that covered the bodies of both men and women, rulers and lesser subjects alike, upon which it would have been difficult to place a price. The arthashastra particularly notes methods for grading pearls, and the types of necklaces into which they could be strung, including one gravity-defying necklace of 1,008 rows.

It may be that one of the reasons that visitors saw pearls worn by non-royal courtiers was that, much like their British equivalents, Indian rulers charged their servants with wearing their pearls during the day to keep them both warm and luminous. Although the geographical proximity to the pearl fishers of the Arabian Gulf and Sri Lanka would have given Indian rulers greater access to pearls than some of their European peers, the pearl was still regarded a symbol of status. Some rulers were believed to drink powdered pearls as an aphrodisiac, and the Sanskrit word for pearl, manjari, means “bud” denoting the sensuality the gem has come to symbolise.



Image 1: Diamond turban jewel made for the Maharaja of Nawanagar
Image 2: Cartier Brooch set with emeralds, sapphires and diamonds

Other notable aspects of the exhibition include several exquisite examples of spinel, a stone which has long been celebrated in the subcontinent whilst remaining relatively unknown in the West. A combination of increasing scarcity, the price of tourmaline, the prevalence in the market of glass-filled and heat treated ruby and the spinel’s relatively low profile, however, marks this gemstone out as a major jewellery trend.

One of the main centerpieces of the show, and one of the few pieces in the exhibition not from the Al Thani Collection, is the Timur Ruby, rather abstractly titled since it is neither a ruby nor was it ever owned by the famous Indian ruler. Now part of the collection of Queen Elizabeth II, the stone was given to Queen Victoria by the East India Company in 1851, and then set in gold, enamel and diamonds by Garrards in 1853. The gem itself demonstrates the significant value placed on these stones by a succession of Mughal rulers, engraved as it is with the names of five royal owners from Jahangir, son of Akbar, in 1612 to Sultan Nadir in 1741.

Contrasting traditional with modern

The Timur Ruby also demonstrates the differing understanding of value that remains central to much of India’s more traditional jewellery making practice. Unlike Western cultures, where brilliance, fire and perfect precision cutting constitute extraordinary gems, the Indian subcontinent holds true (in its more traditional manifestation) to the notion that a stone’s natural character and form – its scale, luminance, colour and clarity – are what defines its beauty.

One of the main techniques that the exhibition focuses on is kundan, the practice of using highly refined gold to set natural, irregular stone shapes within fine, symmetric settings. Its aesthetic is one that has come to define traditional Indian jewellery, and its abandonment by India’s contemporary high jewellers is one of the most notable characteristics of their perceived modernity.

It is the quite clear break with traditional jewellery making practice that the exhibition makes visible, which is one of the show’s most interesting features. Alongside the rejection of traditional setting techniques, it is the widespread preference for platinum (with yellow gold removed to the reverse or interior structure of these new jewels) that has seemed to define “modernity” in contemporary Indian jewellery.

Western influences

Certainly this trend is most evident within the fertile Art Deco period that saw such a volume of commissions from Indian rulers to luxury high jewellery houses in the West  such as Cartier, Boucheron, and more recently JAR, and more recently in contemporary jewellery from India itself.



Image: Gold and diamond hair ornament

Stronge implies that the increased cross-fertilisation with Western tastes has resulted in a loss of regional difference across Indian jewellery, although it's perhaps difficult to conclude about a wider trend from the prism of a very personal selection of objects. It is certainly true that the contemporary jewelers that Al Thani has favoured lean very heavily towards the language of Westernised Indian-ness that Cartier, his Indian clients, and the many other 1920s Western jewellery houses who operated in the country, helped to establish.

The exhibition catalogue relates a lovely vignette of Jacques Cartier’s first visit to India as part of the Delhi Durbar of 1911, marking the coronation of George V as Emperor of India. Cartier had brought, Stronge relates, a selection of jewellery for women, but rapidly realized “the enormous potential of this market was that the princes bought mostly for themselves”.

The legacy of the Al Thani treasures

Perhaps what makes this exhibition so unique in its presentations of high jewellery is that the majority of the pieces chosen have been created to be worn or used by men rather than women, and this in itself is something worth visiting for.

As masculine jewellery cultures diminish so dramatically across the world, the exhibition profiles a dying way of life – both that of the makers, as their traditional arts appear to fade from fashion, and the wearers, and ways of wearing, that these extraordinary gems represent.

Two current exhibitions in London reverentially showcase the work and career of Alexander McQueen (1969-2010), one of fashion's most innovative designers.

Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty at the V&A and Nick Waplington/Alexander McQueen: Working Process at Tate Britain offer different perspectives on the late designer's talent, influences and processes.

First shown in New York and extended here at the V&A, Savage Beauty is a wonder, a series of rooms filled with gothic fantasy, tribal identity, romantic inspiration and a passion for nature.

The exhibition is structured as a narrative of different collections, starting with McQueen's tailored and revealing bumster trousers, his 1995 Highland Rape collection, 1996's Hunger and the exhilarating Horn of Plenty from 2009.

The exhibition finale recreates 2010's Plato's Atlantis collection, a futuristic and thrilling fusion of technology and fashion, complete with its famous Armadillo shoes.

Deeper within the exhibition is the dramatically macabre Cabinet of Curiosities.

This centrepiece room is a spectacular double-height gallery showing archive video footage from McQueen's catwalk shows and accessories, including a butterfly headdress of hand-painted turkey feathers (pictured above) by milliner Philip Treacey.

Jewellers Sarah Harmarnee and Shaun Leane feature prominently. Leane was a long-time collaborator of McQueen, having first met at Central Saint Martins in London.

Leane's distinctive aesthetic is recognisable in the pieces shown in the Cabinet - a Tusk earring for McQueen's Hunger S/S 1996 collection and this neckpiece (pictured above) with silver thorns and grey Tahitian pearls from 2001.

Performance and footage from McQueen's shows feature throughout the exhibition, with one highlight being a hologram of Kate Moss floating eerily in the finale to the 2006 Widows of Culloden show.

The staging of the exhibition has been beautifully done with many pieces such as the razor clam dress (pictured above), arguably being close to works of art themselves.

A must-see retrospective, this exhibition gives a glimpse of the extraordinary and creative talent at work.

On McQueen's right arm was a tattoo, with words from A Midsummer Night's Dream 'Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind'.

If you are left wanting more, it would be to understand and hear from McQueen himself.

Savage Beauty is open at the V&A, London until 2 August 2015.

Opening this weekend is the V&A's major Spring show, 'The Glamour of Italian Fashion 1945-2104'.

Charting the rise of Italian fashion over the last 70 years, the exhibition follows the pivotal events, production innovations and individuals that have created an industry feted today for its glamour, sophistication and luxury.

The curator of the exhibition, Sonnet Stanfill who is also curator of 20th century and contemporary fashion at the V&A, has drawn together over 100 ensembles and accessories by many of Italy's famous fashion houses.

Visitors to the exhibition can admire the elegance and seductive style of Valentino, Prada and Armani, the intricacy of knitwear by Missoni, and fine leatherwork by Dolce & Gabbana and Gucci.

For jewellery lovers there will also be a rare opportunity to view the sheer opulence of a private collection of Bulgari jewels.

As more films were being shot on location in Italy during the 1950s and 1960s, Hollywood stars such as Audrey Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor became style icons for Italian fashion. The American market, in particular, began to take note.

Taylor's husband Richard Burton even famously quipped 'the only word Liz knows in Italian is Bulgari'.

Rather than just being an amazing roll call of today's international design labels, the exhibition also offers the visitor a unique perspective in its examination of these early years.

In preparing the exhibition, Curator Stanfill has carefully researched the world of the Sala Bianca, pictured above, which is often regarded as the post-war birthplace of Italian fashion.

The Sala Bianca was the dream of an Italian business man called Giovanni Battista Giorgini who, whilst exporting Italian-made luxury goods to America, saw an opportunity to promote Italian artisanship and style. A gentleman, without profiting personally from the initiative, Giorgini was also a marketing genius.

Hiring crystal chandeliers, catwalk models and the surroundings of the famous Pitti Palace in Firenze, Giorgini introduced the Italian fashion industry to the world within just a few successful seasons.

The exhibition finishes with a video debate on the future of Italian fashion and questions its role in a world of overseas production and fast-fashion.

Promising to be a thought-provoking and affectionate look at the status of 'Made in Italy' today, the 'Glamour of Italian Fashion 1945-2014' opens on 5th April until 27 July 2014 at the V&A, London.

Born in Florence, Italy in 1445, little is known of the life of Sandro Botticelli. Perhaps even less is known about one of is most famous paintings 'La Nascita di Venere, The Birth of Venus', which is displayed today at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

The painting depicts a vision of Venus, the goddess of love, emerging naked from the sea as a fully grown woman standing in a scallop shell on the seashore. This sublime fantasy has been admired throughout the years for its themes of love, beauty and spirituality.

One of the mysteries of the painting, commissioned by a wealthy Florentine family, was who the self-titled Venus was that Botticelli depicted so well.

Belonging to the ‘golden age’ of the Early Renaissance, Botticelli is believed to have trained as a goldsmith, before becoming a painter.

Botticelli never married, but history suggests that he held an unrequited love for a Florentine women, Simonetta Vespucci. She was a married noble woman, said to have a mesmerising beauty and was known as la bella Simonetta.

The Ideal Portrait of a Woman is a slightly lesser known, but equally favourite work by Botticelli. He painted this piece between 1480-85 and it depicts a women with quintessential Italian Renaissance attributes. With pale skin, an extended neckline, voluptuous long red hair, she is shown here in an elegant profile.

The women is wearing a white robe in fashion at the time, which is adorned with natural pearls. The pretty gemstones in strings are woven into the plaits of her hair and into a braid that runs down into her breast.

The painting is sharp and precise. The pearls shine on the painting, perhaps a nod to Botticelli's earlier training as a goldsmith and his eye for jewellery.

Centuries later, experts are still debating who the beautiful woman of Botticelli's Ideal Portrait may have been. A nymph perhaps, a goddess or a courtesan? Or Simonetta Vespucci?

In the late nineteeth century, the German art historian Aby Warburg deepened the mystery, suggesting that Botticelli’s Venus was also Simonetta Vespucci. The resemblance is striking. The provenance of both paintings is also well known as both were commissioned by members of the Medici family.

Although Simonetta Vespucci had died in 1476, some years before both paintings were completed, Botticelli had not forgotten his muse. When he died, Botticelli requested to be buried at her feet, a wish that was carried out in 1510 when he passed away.

We may never be sure. But it could be that the inspiration for both Botticelli's Venus and this mysterious Florentine woman was one and the same. His Ideal Portrait may be literally just that - a portrait of his ideal woman, la bella Simonetta.

The world of pearls can hold many surprises, but it is not everyday that you have an opportunity to view a historic treasure secured safely beneath the streets of London.

The experimental pearls of famed Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus are about to join the forthcoming Pearls Exhibition at the V&A and so we jumped at the chance to see these early successful attempts to culture a spherical pearl in close up.

CARL LINNAEUS

Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) is best known for his method of classifying organisms that uses two latin names to represent the genus and the species, for example 'Homo Sapiens'. This taxonomy is conventionally used today to describe and classify the hierarchical relationships of animals, plants and  insects to each other.

Linnaeus' collections of specimen organisms, including dried flowers, insects, fish and molluscs are unique and are still a primary reference point for scientists to determine if they have found a new species.

Following his death, the Linnean collections were purchased by Sir James Edward Smith in 1784 and transported to London, where they remain today.

THE LINNEAN SOCIETY

In 1788, Smith also founded The Linnean Society to provide a forum to discuss and promote the study of natural history.

The Linnean Society is the world's oldest active biological society. It was at a meeting of the Society in 1858 that papers by Charles Darwin were presented outlining the theory of natural selection and evolution.

The collections were obtained by the Society in 1829 and are today securely held in a vault below the courtyard of Burlington House, Piccadilly in central London. Leather bound books, old parchment folders and specimen trays line the carefully curated shelves and drawers.

Also in the strongroom was a very rare (and valuable) signed first edition of Charles Darwin's 'Origin of the Species' - a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see.

LINNAEA BOREALIS

Carefully wrapped in parchment was this original specimen of Linnaea Borealis, a wildflower of northern and alpine origin that has a distinctive double twin flower shape. The flower is named after Linnaeus as it was a favourite of his whilst travelling in Lapland.

As well as having a beautiful white pink flower, Carl Linnaeus fell in love with the wildflower for the way that it grew persistently in the undergrowth and its ephemeral, short-lived life. These were two symbols that he felt were important in his own life and portraits of Linnaeus, including the one above, and in the Society all feature the Linnaea Borealis.

This little flower has a special meaning for Winterson as it was an inspiration for our own flower motif, also honouring its link with Linnaeus and his early achievements in culturing pearls.

LINNAEUS AND PEARLS

Linnaeus declared in 1761 that 'he had heard of people who made gold, but had never heard of any who could make pearls'. Describing the lengthy and time-consuming efforts to find natural pearls that he had seen in Purkijaur, Lapland, Linnaeus believed that a technique for culturing pearls existed that would be more effective and profitable for Sweden.

Linnaeus started to experiment with 'Unio Pictorum', a species of freshwater mussel called the Painter's mussel. This mussel was named as traditionally its shells were used by painters as convenient receptacles for mixing paint.

His technique was a variation of an old Chinese method for producing blister pearls. Drilling a hole in the mussel's shell, Linnaeus inserted a small granule of limestone between the mantle and the shell to help produce a free spherical pearl inside the mussel.

The mussels were returned to the riverbed for six years to produce what is regarded as the world's first spherical cultured pearls. They are indeed historic and fascinating to view.

Linnaeus' method is also based on an old misunderstanding that pearls are created with a grain of sand. We know now that a response to illness or a parasite is the more likely explanation for the growth of natural pearls in an oyster or mussel.

These experimental pearls were not ultimately the source of riches that Linnaeus had hoped for, but he was enobled by the King of Sweden for his efforts taking the title von Linné. The pearls, a patent and Linnaeus' secret were sold to a Swedish merchant named Peter Bagge, but nothing came out of this venture.

Another Londoner Sir John Hunter is recorded as having attempted to culture freshwater pearls in his ponds at Earl's Court Manor House using a similar method to Linnaeus, but it was left to a different Englishman William Saville-Kent to make the next break-through in pearl culturing.

SEE THE LINNAEUS PEARLS AT THE V&A

We would to like thank Elaine Charwat, Deputy Librarian of the Linnean Society for her fabulous help in showing us Carl Linnaeus' pearls.

The pearls themselves are on display soon at Pearls, the V&A's new exhibition. Not to be missed...

With much excitement and anticipation, the Pearls exhibition at the V&A Museum opens later this month in London.

PEARLS EXHIBITION AT THE V&A

Promising to be one of the biggest Autumn shows, the exhibition will show off the luxurious qualities of some of the world's most unusual and valuable pearls and jewellery, as well as exploring the unique heritage and impact on popular culture of this beautiful gem.

We are very fortunate to be able to ask Beatriz Chadour-Sampson and Hubert Bari, the curators of the Pearls exhibition, about the show and what a visitor can look forward to. We would like to thank them, the V&A and the Qatar Museums Authority for their support with this article.

Here are Beatriz and Hubert's thoughts on 'Pearls'.

How special has this exhibition been for you and to curate? What did you hope that its visitors may learn about pearls?

From all gems, it is the most unusual as the natural pearl is produced by living animals. Even cultured pearls after human intervention are created by nature. Visitors will be amazed to learn that, in principle, any mollusc can produce a pearl from the giant clam to the land snail, and they will be dazzled by the variety of shapes and colours of pearls.

The history of the trade of pearls between continents is fascinating, and how East and West share the same passion for pearls.

Pearls have a unique symbolic significance and mystique. Can the pearl claim to be the world's favourite gem?

Incredibly, pearls have created a global fascination over millennia, like no other gem. There is something magical about pearls, their beauty lies in their perfection of form and most of all lustre. They are born in the form that nature made them with a natural sheen.

Pearls have always been a symbol of femininity. Maybe this is the reason why the fashion for pearls continues today.

The exhibition showcases many famous examples of pearl jewellery, many styles of which are still being referenced today in popular culture. Have we already seen a 'golden age' of pearl jewellery design or is the pearl a gem that will be constantly reinvented?

Yes, as no other gem has been worn as consistently, as pearls. Pearls are neutral and versatile, appropriate for any occasion. In previous years jewellers have shown a persistent, if not renewed interest in creating new designs with pearls.

What is the most striking or surprising aspect for you about the history of the pearl?

The fascination for pearls and wish to wear these beauties of nature transcends cultures and borders. The similarities in the myths and legends surrounding the pearl in East and West are astonishing. Pearls mark authority and power, symbolize prosperity and on a more personal note they are associated with joy at weddings or tears as a sign of mourning.

Natural pearls have undergone a renaissance in the last decade, achieving spectacular prices at auction, and cultured pearls are being produced in better, more diverse and beautiful qualities. What does the future hold for this gem?

The future of the pearl depends on so many factors, not least the condition of our seas. Natural pearls are simply too rare and expensive, only affordable to the very few. Today China produces such quantities of cultured pearls of inferior quality, that they are endangering the pearl market. Whilst they give great care when creating one pearl from an oyster, the Chinese produce 50 in one mussel, at low cost in rice fields or near housing estates. In South East Asia the farms which produce the beautiful South Sea pearls are experiencing not only financial difficulties but the effects of pollution and for these reasons their future remains uncertain.

The desire for pearls has been so insatiable that imitation pearls have existed over centuries and their advocate in the 1930s Coco Chanel was instrumental in reviving the fashion for pearls and revived the industry at a time when this was unthinkable. No one can tell what the future will hold for this beautiful gem, but the fashion for pearls endures.

The 'Pearls, V&A and Qatar Museums Authority Exhibition', runs from 21 September 2013 to 19 January 2014 as part of the Qatar UK 2013 Year of Culture.

To learn more about the exhibition, visit the V&A website here.