---
title: "Who Invented Cultured Pearls?"
description: "Who invented cultured pearls: blister pearls in medieval China, Mikimoto, Mise and Nishikawa in Japan, the 1921 London alarm, and how culturing spread."
canonical_url: "https://learnaboutpearls.com/history/cultured-pearl-revolution/"
last_updated: "2026-11-04"
last_reviewed: "2026-10-27"
reviewed_by: "Simon"
publisher: "Unique Pearl"
publisher_disclosure: "Learn About Pearls is published by Unique Pearl, a pearl jeweler."
---
# Who Invented Cultured Pearls?

**Short answer:** No one person invented them. Chinese farmers were growing blister pearls on small Buddha figures inside freshwater mussels by the 13th century. In Japan, Kokichi Mikimoto cultured half pearls in 1893, and Tatsuhei Mise and Tokichi Nishikawa developed the basic method for round bead-cultured pearls that is still used today, which Mikimoto built into a worldwide business. By 1921, round cultured pearls had reached the London market.

**Key facts:**

- By the 13th century, Chinese farmers were growing blister pearls on small Buddha figures fixed inside freshwater mussels. [1, 2]
- Kokichi Mikimoto cultured hemispherical pearls in Japan in 1893. [3, 4]
- Tatsuhei Mise and Tokichi Nishikawa developed the basic technique still used for bead-cultured pearls, a bead inserted into the gonad with a piece of mantle tissue. [5]
- CIBJO's retailers' guide dates the technique for round cultured pearls to 1907; its 2025 pearl guide says Akoya have been the original cultured round pearl since 1905. [3, 6]
- In 1921 a London paper reported that round Japanese cultured pearls had deceived experienced pearl merchants in Hatton Garden. [7]
- The first gem testing laboratories, from 1925 on, focused on telling natural pearls from cultured ones. [8]
- Japan's official cultured pearl production peaked in 1966 at 39,522 kan, or 148.2 tonnes. [5]

The [cultured pearl](https://learnaboutpearls.com/glossary/#cultured-pearl) wasn’t invented in one moment. It grew out of centuries of experiments in China and a few decades of work in Japan, and within a generation it had changed the pearl trade for good.

## Early experiments in China

The first steps toward culturing pearls were taken in China hundreds of years ago. [9] By the 13th century, Chinese farmers were fixing small lead figures of Buddha inside freshwater mussels, which coated them in [nacre](https://learnaboutpearls.com/glossary/#nacre) to make [blister pearls](https://learnaboutpearls.com/glossary/#blister-pearl). [1, 2] One FAO report dates the practice much earlier, to more than 2,000 years ago. [10]

## Half pearls, then round ones

The modern cultured pearl industry began in Japan. Kokichi Mikimoto produced hemispherical, or half, cultured pearls in 1893. [3, 4] The method for whole, round pearls came from Tatsuhei Mise, a carpenter, and Tokichi Nishikawa, a zoologist and Mikimoto’s son-in-law. It is the basic technique still used for [bead-cultured pearls](https://learnaboutpearls.com/glossary/#beaded-cultured-pearl): a bead inserted into the oyster’s [gonad](https://learnaboutpearls.com/glossary/#gonad) along with a piece of [mantle](https://learnaboutpearls.com/glossary/#mantle) tissue. [5]

CIBJO’s retailers’ guide calls it Nishikawa’s “piece method.” A bead and a piece of mantle tissue from a sacrificed oyster are inserted into the host’s gonad, and the piece grows into the [pearl sac](https://learnaboutpearls.com/glossary/#pearl-sac), which coats the whole bead in nacre. [3]

Sources date the first round pearls differently. The same CIBJO guide dates the technique for whole, round cultured pearls to 1907, while CIBJO’s 2025 pearl guide calls the [Akoya](https://learnaboutpearls.com/glossary/#akoya) the original cultured round pearl since 1905. [3, 6]

Japan may not have been first. By some accounts, William Saville Kent, a Queensland fisheries commissioner, cultured [mabe](https://learnaboutpearls.com/glossary/#mabe) and even round pearls in Australia as early as 1890, but he did not document his techniques before his death in 1906. [5]

## From curiosity to industry

Few of the early pearls looked like the round, lustrous gems now associated with Japanese cultured pearls: most were small and irregular, or mabe (half) pearls. By the 1920s, though, round pearls between 2 and 3 mm across had become more common and helped fuel a worldwide fashion boom. [5] In Japan, cultured pearls were first marketed as a commodity in the middle of the Taisho era, which ran from 1912 to 1926. [6]

Mikimoto gave the industry its first internationally recognized brand, and his aggressive marketing helped bring pearls back into fashion in the 1920s. [5]

![Black-and-white photo of women pearl divers in white clothes and hoods, standing and kneeling on rocks beside wooden tubs, with Kokichi Mikimoto, in dark clothes and a hat, behind them.](/_astro/mikimoto-pearl-divers-1921.Bj4zZm1s_Z1faLdD.jpg?dpl=dpl_HtGtH9KVXNVAK9cLZJJhqCYEKmh2)

Kokichi Mikimoto with women pearl divers in Japan in 1921. Photo: “Parelduikers / Pearl divers”, Spaarnestad Photo (Het Leven), Nationaal Archief. [No known copyright restrictions](https://www.flickr.com/commons/usage/), via [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Parelduikers_Pearl_divers.jpg).

Production grew fast. In 1931, 51 Japanese farms produced over a million pearls. [5] During that decade farmers began collecting [spat](https://learnaboutpearls.com/glossary/#spat), or embryonic oysters, and raising them in tanks, and within seven years 289 farms were culturing 11 million pearls, nearly all for export. [5]

## Alarm in London, and the first laboratories

Round cultured pearls caused a stir when they reached Europe. On May 4, 1921, a London evening paper reported that perfectly round Japanese pearls with [mother-of-pearl](https://learnaboutpearls.com/glossary/#mother-of-pearl) beads at their centers had reached the London market and deceived experienced pearl merchants in Hatton Garden, who had bought and resold them as natural. [7] Many inaccurate and contradictory reports followed in the daily papers. [7]

Telling the two apart became the first task of the new gem laboratories. The London Chamber of Commerce opened a gem testing laboratory in 1925, followed by the Laboratoire Français de Gemmologie in 1929 and GIA in 1931, and all of them at first focused on identifying [natural pearls](https://learnaboutpearls.com/glossary/#natural-pearl) and cultured ones. [8]

Cultured pearls became commercially important in the 1920s, at about the time natural pearl production began to decline. [9] By the mid-1930s, the Great Depression, the discovery of oil in the Persian Gulf and the arrival of Japanese cultured pearls in commercial quantities had cut natural pearl revenues there by more than 70%. [11]

## Guarding quality in Japan

Japan’s producers soon policed their own pearls. From September 1928, the Dainippon (Japan) Pearl Association required its members to submit all their cultured pearls for inspection, and pearls that fell short on [nacre thickness](https://learnaboutpearls.com/glossary/#nacre-thickness), [luster](https://learnaboutpearls.com/glossary/#luster) or color, or were badly deformed, were banned from sale. [6] In 1932 it was reorganized as the Japan Cultured Pearl Fishery Association, with full-time inspectors. [6]

During the world recession of the time, pearls with thin nacre still slipped overseas through middlemen. To set an example, Mikimoto burned 36 [kan](https://learnaboutpearls.com/glossary/#kan) (135 kg) of pearls, with a market value of 48,000 yen, in front of the Kobe Chamber of Commerce, the so-called “cremation of pearls.” [6]

After the Second World War, the government took over. From March 1952, under the Pearl Cultivation Law, pearls could be exported only after a government inspection, at offices in Tokyo and Kobe, had graded them. [6] The inspections ran for 46 years, until the law was abolished at the end of 1998. [6] The page [pearl grading](https://learnaboutpearls.com/grading/) describes the grades they used.

## Peak and spread

World War II devastated Japan’s pearl industry, and only a third of its farms stayed in business, even at a subsistence level. Production then exploded through the 1950s, and official output peaked in 1966 at an all-time high of 39,522 kan, or 148.2 tonnes, though some estimates put it far higher. [5]

Japan meant to keep the industry at home. After an effort led by Mikimoto, the head of Japan’s Fisheries Agency set out the so-called Three Principles: pearl culturing technology was not to be given to foreign countries, pearls cultured on foreign farms were to be exported to Japan, and Japanese companies culturing pearls abroad had to submit their plans to the Fisheries Agency. Although culturing spread to Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, French Polynesia and China, Japanese firms largely controlled its production and distribution, with no real challenge until the mid-1990s. [5]

Culturing moved to new oysters and waters. The Mitsubishi company of Japan set up a farm for the large South Sea oyster, _[Pinctada maxima](https://learnaboutpearls.com/glossary/#pinctada-maxima)_, in the Philippines in 1917, and South Sea culturing began at Kuri Bay in Western Australia in 1954. [5] French Polynesia ran its first [black pearl](https://learnaboutpearls.com/glossary/#black-pearl) trial in 1961, [5] and has produced black pearls since the mid-1970s. [12] In China, [freshwater cultured pearls](https://learnaboutpearls.com/glossary/#freshwater-cultured-pearl) first appeared on the market in the late 1960s and early 1970s. [1] The page [where pearls come from](https://learnaboutpearls.com/farming/where-pearls-come-from/) shows where each type is farmed today.

From the 1930s through the 1980s, pearl culturing diversified and spread to countries around the world. [9] Today cultured pearls make up the vast majority of pearl sales. [13]

## Timeline

1. **13th century** (disputed): Chinese farmers grow blister pearls on small Buddha figures. By the 13th century, small lead figures of Buddha were being fixed inside freshwater mussels (Cristaria plicata), which coated them in nacre. An FAO report from 1984 dates the practice to more than 2,000 years ago. [1, 2, 10]
2. **1893**: Kokichi Mikimoto grows his first cultured pearls. Kokichi Mikimoto successfully cultured pearls in Japan. They were hemispherical (half) pearls. [3, 4]
3. **1907**: The technique for whole, round cultured pearls is developed. CIBJO dates the technique for spherical, whole cultured pearls to 1907. A 2007 Gems & Gemology review credits Tatsuhei Mise and Tokichi Nishikawa with the basic method still used for bead-cultured pearls, a bead inserted into the gonad with a piece of mantle tissue. [3, 5]
4. **1917**: A Japanese company starts culturing pearls in the Philippines. Shortly after Mikimoto began mass-producing Akoya cultured pearls with the Mise-Nishikawa method, the Mitsubishi company of Japan set up a Pinctada maxima pearl farm in the Philippines. Others followed, and several survived until the Second World War. [5]
5. **1921-05**: Round Japanese cultured pearls surprise the London trade. A London evening paper reported that spherical Japanese pearls with mother-of-pearl beads at their centers had reached the London market and deceived experienced dealers in Hatton Garden. [7]
6. **1925**: Gem testing laboratories open to separate natural from cultured pearls. The London Chamber of Commerce opened a gem testing laboratory in 1925, followed by the Laboratoire Français de Gemmologie in 1929 and GIA in 1931. All three first focused on telling natural pearls from cultured ones. [8]
7. **1928-09**: Japan's pearl producers begin inspecting their own pearls. The Dainippon (Japan) Pearl Association required its members to submit all their cultured pearls for inspection, and pearls with too little nacre, poor luster or color, or a very deformed shape were banned from sale. [6]
8. **1952-03**: Japan begins government inspection of pearl exports. Under the Pearl Cultivation Law, pearls could be exported only after a government inspection, at offices in Tokyo and Kobe, had graded them. The inspections ran for 46 years, until the law was abolished at the end of 1998. [6]
9. **1954**: South Sea pearl culturing begins at Kuri Bay, Western Australia. Pearls Pty., a venture of Tokuichi Kuribayashi and Alan Gerdau, began culturing pearls in Pinctada maxima at what is now Kuri Bay. A larger bead method let the farm harvest after only 18 months. [5]
10. **1961**: French Polynesia runs its first black pearl culturing trial. The government's Fisheries Service ran a trial on Bora Bora with two Japanese firms. It produced good black pearls but had no commercial follow-up; small farms later formed the GIE Poe Rava Nui cooperative, in 1979. [5]
11. **1966**: Japan's cultured pearl production peaks. Official Japanese production reached an all-time high of 39,522 kan, or 148.2 tonnes, though some estimates put it far higher, at about 65,000 kan. Sales and production then fell sharply at the end of the decade. [5]

## Questions people ask

### Did Mikimoto invent cultured pearls?

Not on his own. Kokichi Mikimoto cultured half pearls in 1893 and built the pearl industry's first internationally recognized brand, but the basic method for round bead-cultured pearls came from Tatsuhei Mise and Tokichi Nishikawa, his son-in-law. Chinese farmers had grown blister pearls centuries earlier. [1, 3, 5]

### When were cultured pearls invented?

In stages. Blister pearls were grown in China by the 13th century, Mikimoto cultured half pearls in 1893, and the technique for whole, round pearls dates from 1905 to 1907, depending on the source. Cultured pearls became commercially important in the 1920s. [1, 3, 6, 9]

### Who was William Saville Kent?

A Queensland fisheries commissioner who, by some accounts, cultured mabe and even round pearls in Australia as early as 1890, before culturing took off in Japan. He did not document his techniques before his death in 1906. [5]

### Why did cultured pearls take over from natural pearls?

Cultured pearls became commercially important in the 1920s, at about the time natural pearl production began to decline, and today they make up the vast majority of pearl sales. By the mid-1930s, the Great Depression, the discovery of oil in the Persian Gulf and the arrival of Japanese cultured pearls had cut natural pearl revenues there by more than 70%. [9, 11, 13]

## References

1. Shigeru Akamatsu, Li Tajima Zansheng, Thomas M. Moses and Kenneth Scarratt (2001). The Current Status of Chinese Freshwater Cultured Pearls. [Source](https://www.gia.edu/gems-gemology/summer-2001-chinese-freshwater-cultured-pearls-akmatsu) · DOI [10.5741/GEMS.37.2.96](https://doi.org/10.5741/GEMS.37.2.96) · [Archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20260814013828/https://www.gia.edu/gems-gemology/summer-2001-chinese-freshwater-cultured-pearls-akmatsu)
2. FAO/UNDP Regional Seafarming Development and Demonstration Project (RAS/90/002) (1991). Pearl Oyster Farming and Pearl Culture (Training Manual 8). [Source](https://www.fao.org/4/ab726e/ab726e01.htm) · [Archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20261026000555/https://www.fao.org/4/ab726e/ab726e01.htm)
3. CIBJO, The World Jewellery Confederation (2021). CIBJO Retailers' Reference Guide: Pearls. [Source](https://cibjo.org/rrg/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/CIBJO%20RRG%20%28Pearls%29.pdf) · [Archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20261025235321/https://cibjo.org/rrg/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/CIBJO%20RRG%20\(Pearls\).pdf)
4. Gemological Institute of America (GIA), Gem Encyclopedia. Pearl. [Source](https://www.gia.edu/pearl) · [Archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20260909031512/https://www.gia.edu/pearl)
5. Russell Shor (2007). From Single Source to Global Free Market: The Transformation of the Cultured Pearl Industry. [Source](https://www.gia.edu/doc/Fall-2007-Gems-Gemology-Cultured-Pearl-Industry.pdf) · DOI [10.5741/GEMS.43.3.200](https://doi.org/10.5741/GEMS.43.3.200) · [Archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20261025235723/https://www.gia.edu/doc/Fall-2007-Gems-Gemology-Cultured-Pearl-Industry.pdf)
6. CIBJO Pearl Commission (2025). CIBJO Guides Describing and Classifying Natural and Cultured Pearls, the Producing Molluscs & Responsible Pearling. [Source](https://cibjo.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Final-Guide-October-2025-v2-COMPRESSED.pdf) · [Archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20260212155210/https://cibjo.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Final-Guide-October-2025-v2-COMPRESSED.pdf)
7. H. Lyster Jameson (1921). The Japanese Artificially Induced Pearl. [Source](https://www.nature.com/articles/107396a0) · DOI [10.1038/107396a0](https://doi.org/10.1038/107396a0) · [Archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20250417121447/https://www.nature.com/articles/107396a0)
8. Chunhui Zhou and W. Henry Towbin (2024). Applications of X-Ray Radiography and X-Ray Computed Microtomography in Gemology. [Source](https://www.gia.edu/gems-gemology/winter-2024-x-ray-imaging) · DOI [10.5741/GEMS.60.4.582](https://doi.org/10.5741/GEMS.60.4.582) · [Archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20260313113455/https://www.gia.edu/gems-gemology/winter-2024-x-ray-imaging)
9. Gemological Institute of America (GIA), Gem Encyclopedia. Pearl History and Lore. [Source](https://www.gia.edu/pearl-history-lore) · [Archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20260612145202/https://www.gia.edu/pearl-history-lore)
10. R. Pagcatipunan (1984). Technical Assistance on Oyster and Pearl Culture in Bangladesh. [Source](https://www.fao.org/4/r2032e/r2032e03.htm) · [Archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20261102191117/https://www.fao.org/4/r2032e/r2032e03.htm)
11. GIA staff (2025). Converge 2025 Speaker Presentations. [Source](https://www.gia.edu/gems-gemology/winter-2025-gemnews-converge-speakers) · [Archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20261025235910/https://www.gia.edu/gems-gemology/winter-2025-gemnews-converge-speakers)
12. Changbo Zhu, Paul C. Southgate and Ting Li (2019). Production of Pearls. [Source](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-96776-9_5) · DOI [10.1007/978-3-319-96776-9_5](https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96776-9_5) · [Archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20240129152149/https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-96776-9_5)
13. Gemological Institute of America (GIA), Birthstones. June Birthstones. [Source](https://www.gia.edu/birthstones/june-birthstones) · [Archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20260614074112/https://www.gia.edu/birthstones/june-birthstones)

**Written by:** Learn About Pearls editors

**Fact-checked:** Learn About Pearls editors, October 26, 2026

**Reviewed by:** Simon, October 27, 2026

**First published:** November 4, 2026

**Publisher:** [Unique Pearl](https://learnaboutpearls.com/about/), a pearl jeweler

**Revision history**

1. November 4, 2026: First published. First published

**How to cite this page**

**APA:** Learn About Pearls editors. (2026). _Who Invented Cultured Pearls?_ Learn About Pearls. https://learnaboutpearls.com/history/cultured-pearl-revolution/

**MLA:** “Who Invented Cultured Pearls?” _Learn About Pearls_, Unique Pearl, November 4, 2026, learnaboutpearls.com/history/cultured-pearl-revolution/.

**Chicago:** Learn About Pearls editors. “Who Invented Cultured Pearls?” Learn About Pearls. Unique Pearl. Last modified November 4, 2026. https://learnaboutpearls.com/history/cultured-pearl-revolution/.

**BibTeX:** `@misc{lap-history-cultured-pearl-revolution, title = {Who Invented Cultured Pearls?}, author = {{Learn About Pearls editors}}, year = {2026}, howpublished = {\url{https://learnaboutpearls.com/history/cultured-pearl-revolution/}}, note = {Learn About Pearls, published by Unique Pearl}}`

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## Related pages

- [History](https://learnaboutpearls.com/history/): From ancient pearl fisheries to the first cultured pearls and today's industry, with a dated timeline.
- [How pearl farms work](https://learnaboutpearls.com/farming/how-pearl-farms-work/): The five stages of pearl farming, from choosing the oysters to processing the pearls.
- [Akoya pearls](https://learnaboutpearls.com/types/akoya-pearls/): The classic round, white saltwater cultured pearl, grown mostly in Japan.