In the age of European expansion, pearls became potent symbols of imperial supremacy. Pearls for the Crown demonstrates how European art legitimated racialized hierarchies and inequitable notions about humanity and nature that still hold sway today. When Christopher Columbus encountered pristine pearl beds in southern Caribbean waters in 1498, he procured the first source of New World wealth for the Spanish Crown, but he also established an alternative path to an industry that had remained outside European control for centuries. Centering her study on a selection of key artworks tied to the pearl industry, Mónica Domínguez Torres examines the interplay of materiality, labor, race, and power that drove artistic production in the early modern period. Spanish colonizers exploited the expertise and forced labor of Native American and African workers to establish pearling centers along the coasts of South and Central America, disrupting the environmental and demographic dynamics of their overseas territories. Drawing from postcolonial theory, material culture studies, and ecocriticism, Domínguez Torres demonstrates how, through use of the pearl, European courtly art articulated ideas about imperial expansion, European superiority, and control over nature, all of which played key roles in the political circles surrounding the Spanish Crown. This highly anticipated interdisciplinary study will be welcomed by scholars of art history, the history of colonial Latin America, and ecocriticism in the context of the Spanish colonies.

“A fabulous interweaving of fantasy, politics, and sisterhood—this unusual, tense tale will have you on the edge of your seat!”—#1 New York Times bestselling author Tamora Pierce Red Queen meets House of Salt and Sorrow in Mara Rutherford's debut YA fantasy Crown of Coral and Pearl, which follows a young woman from a village on the sea who must impersonate her twin on land to save everyone she loves from a tyrannical prince. For generations, the crown princes of Ilara have married the most beautiful maidens from the ocean village of Varenia. Nor once dreamed of seeing the mysterious mountain kingdom for herself, but after a childhood accident left her with a scar, she knew her twin sister, Zadie, would likely be chosen to marry the crown prince. Then Zadie is injured, and Nor is sent to Ilara in her place. She soon discovers her future husband, Prince Ceren, is as forbidding and cold as his home. And as she grows closer to Ceren’s brother, Prince Talin, Nor learns of a failing royal bloodline, a murdered queen...and a plot to destroy her village. To save her people, Nor must learn to negotiate the treacherous protocols of a court where lies reign and obsession rules...but discovering her own formidable strength may cost her everything she loves. Books in the Crown of Coral and Pearl duology: Crown of Coral and Pearl Kingdom of Sea and Stone

The preparation of this book has been a joint labor during the spare moments of the two authors, whose time has been occupied with subjects to which pearls are not wholly foreign—one as a gem expert, and the other in the fisheries branch of the American government. For many years the writers have collected data on the subject of pearls, and have accumulated all the obtainable literature, not only the easily procurable books, but likewise manuscripts, copies of rare volumes, original edicts, and legislative enactments, thousands of newspaper clippings, and interesting illustrations, many of them unique, making probably the largest single collection of data in existence on this particular subject. It was deemed advisable to present the results of these studies and observations in one harmonious volume, rather than in two different publications. While the book is a joint work in the sense that each writer has contributed material to all of the chapters and has critically examined and approved the entire work, the senior author has more closely applied himself to the latter half of the text, covering antiquity values, commerce, wearing manipulation, treatment, famous collections, aboriginal use, and the illustrations, while the junior author has attended to the earlier half of the book, with reference to history, origin, sources, fisheries, culture, mystical properties, and the literature of the pearl.

Ancient Roman engraved rings, eye miniatures, love tokens, an Art Deco aquamarine and diamond brooch … Anne Schofield, Australia's best-known antique jewellery expert, unlocks the cabinets in her exclusive Sydney shop in Queen Street, Woollahra and reveals the favourite pieces of jewellery she has bought, sold and collected over 50 years. World-famous designers, flamboyant aristocrats and eccentric collectors all make an appearance in this very personal book as Anne shares the fascinating stories behind a stunning array of jewellery.