| Mine isn't an expert answer, and comes from a buyer's perspective...
I think few would dispute that shape is a factor: 'baroque' is better in billowy, convex volumes and closer to a 'deformation' of a classic shape (off round, drop, oval) rather than thin. It takes a few words to describe, but I'm sure the picture is clear (a plump pearl).
Some may not agree that size really matters. Personally, I don't agree subscribe to this view, but it does seem to be out there - the usual compromise is shape versus size: i.e. if one goes for baroque shape is in order to get really large pearls. And this makes small baroque ones vanish from sight on some seller's lists altogether.
Of course, the color, surface, orient etc. go on top of these shape and size preferences. Somewhere, somehow, a strand of baroque pearls might well be getting all things right. Lucky who has it! O have not even seen such a thing: the most impressive nacre quality I have seen was on freshwater pearls of wacky shapes, the large plump examples didn't quite cut it for nacre, and the larger the size, the worse everything gets.
I wonder if the shapes considered great for cultured baroque pearls (esp. the nucleated) are not in fact the shapes of fine natural pearls - considering that perfect geometry only became a practical choice for relatively thin-nacred nucleated pearls. Compared to those, everything but a few exceptions among naturals would NOT be 'baroque'!
My 2c.
I find it quite confusing when 'baroque' and 'keshi' are used to describe SHAPE rather than the nature of the pearl. There might be strong association - with keshi resulting from the cultivation of nucleated pearls sharing typically thin shapes, and cultured baroques highly recognizable and distinct from that... With non-nucleated cultured baroque pearls increasingly prominent, this usage seems more and more frequent, as much (=little) as I can tell. There has been some discussion about this on this forum already.  |