The Freshwater pearl

The freshwater pearl, in its largest size.

Fresh waters give the most widespread pearl in the world, and at the same time the most varied. The colours range from white to pink, purple, peach and lavender, and they are the colours the gem was born with. The shapes extend beyond the sphere, and diameters reach twenty millimetres and beyond: sizes that remain rare in pearl jewellery.

For this very reason selection counts here more than anywhere else: among many pearls, few carry the lustre and the orient that are sought. Lustre is the light the surface sends back; orient is the iridescence that surfaces from beneath. The freshwater pearl is moreover made almost entirely of pearly matter, and from this structure comes its compactness.

In the maison's Freshwater pearls. Direct selection in China · native colours · diameters among the widest that fresh water produces · every gem admitted only when lustre, orient, shape and structural integrity correspond to the MIMÍ master pearls.

The seven factors by which a pearl is read, and the difference between lustre and orient: How a pearl is judged. The baroque shape runs through this type too: Baroque pearls. What determines the value of a gem: What determines the price of a pearl.

Text by the MIMÍ Milano gemmologists · updated 9 September 2026