EDUARD HEUSCH, THE ENTREPRENEUR WITH A FASCINATION FOR PEARLS
In an era in which pearls were rarer and scarcer than diamonds, Eduard Heusch, a German-born innovator, invented the first process for the creation of man-made pearls. In 1890, after obtaining the first patent validated for pearl creation in the Paris Universal Exhibition, he founded the company "Societé des perles de Indes E. Heusch& Co".
This was a historic milestone in the jewellery industry. His goal was to achieve a process that could enable the reproduction of a pearl which, because of its perfection, could be confused with a natural pearl. At that time there were only natural pearls, which were rare, slow to form and therefore very expensive. The pioneering dream of Eduard Heusch was to make pearls accessible to more people. Years later, in Japan, a process of creating cultivated pearls was invented, but Heusch's idea was earlier and visionary.