Mother-of-pearl is the hard, silvery, internal layer of several kinds of shells, especially oysters, the large varieties of which in the Indian Seas secrete this coat of sufficient thickness to ...

Mother-of-pearl can be traced back to the Mesopotamians in 2500BC, and China’s Ming and Shang dynasties (the latter goes back to 1500BC). The Victorians, ...

Nacre, also known as mother-of-pearl, then forms a layer around the irritant to protect the mollusk. Nacre gives the pearl its luster and gem-like sheen.