At Devino you will find some of the most magnificent cultured pearls available on the market. We specialise in Akoya, Black South Sea (aka Tahitian), White South Sea and Keshi pearls (aka seed pearls). We invite you to navigate through the menu above to learn about each of these pearls.
A cultured pearl is produced when a technician skilfully inserts a piece of mantle tissue and bead nucleus (with the exception of some freshwater) into a healthy, mature oyster or mussel. To protect itself from this irritant, the oyster produces cells that secrete multiple layers of nacre that eventually coat the foreign matter to become the cultured pearl.
After the insertion, the oyster is placed in wire mesh baskets for protection and hung from floating rafts in the sea. Traditionally, after one to three years beneath the sea the pearls are then harvested. The shape and size of the resulting pearls depends, to a large degree, on the shape and size of their implant. Finding a valuable pearls requires as much luck as skill. The number of gem quality or ‘perfect’ pearls produced each year is still remarkably low.