It is a French translation of the Portuguese word "Barroco" meaning an irregular pearl. Later the term came to be used to describe certain music or art movements., “to underline the excesses of its emphasis, of its eccentric redundancy, its noisy abundance of details, as opposed to the clearer and sober rationality of the Renaissance.“from Wikipedia A baroque pearl is a pearl with or without a central axis. Simply put a Baroque Pearl is a pearl with an irregular shape. During the Renaissance Baroque Pearls were use to create fanciful pieces of sculpture. Jewelers saw miniature beasts, mermaids, lions, sea monsters and other shapes in the asymmetrical forms of the baroque pearl. Generally set in gold with other gemstones, they were worn as pendants. Larger Baroque pearls were fashioned into small sculpture often used to create humorous or grotesque objects.

Today Baroque pearls are produced mainly from the South Sea or Tahitian cultivators. Generally because of the length of time that the pearl is cultivated in these pearls, it has a greater chance to become asymmetrical. Although these are a variety of cultured saltwater pearls, the amount of time that the pearls are cultured dramatically increases the depth of the nacre, and the likelihood of producing a baroque pearl. Most Tahitian pearl farm harvests, for example, produce more than 40 percent baroque and semi-baroque pearls. Freshwater pearls because of the way in which they are produced tend to produce a high percentage of baroque pearls, although much less valuable than the South Sea and Tahitian. For a while all that was produced in the freshwater pearls were baroque pearls, some even were called “rice Krispies” because of their shape and were of very low value. Akoya pearls tend not to produce many baroque pearls, mostly due to the way that they are cultivated. Akoya pearls are grown with a round nucleus and they are cultivated for a much shorter time; hence, they do not have the time to develop unusual shapes.

Some of the South Sea and Tahitian Baroque pearls can be quite beautiful due to the depth of the nacre and the reflectiveness of the rings and shapes.