Mother of Pearl Boxes
Mother of pearl inlay (luódiàn) is an ancient East Asian technique of embedding thin shell pieces into lacquered wood or box surfaces. At Eterna Arte we curate handcrafted jewelry boxes where every sliver of shell is hand cut, polished and arranged forming geometric patterns, landscapes or floral motifs that shift with light. Perfect for rings, talismans or as a meaningful gift; each box is both a vessel and a keepsake.
Meet the Artisans：
In the winter of 1927 Shanghai, Franco-Chinese socialite Isabella Vretha discovered a broken jade pine brooch inside her grandmother’s rosewood vanity box.
Faded upon a French letter lay a cryptic line:
“To Botansa — follow the jade’s guidance beneath the ancient pine.”
This century-old riddle was finally unveiled beneath a three-hundred-year-old pine forest in Suzhou, where a bronze casket revealed the missing jade fragment and a long-lost Ming dynasty manuscript, The Craftsman’s Notes.
“Botansa,” once forgotten by history, was none other than Empress Dowager Cixi’s imperial jeweler — a master who fused literati aesthetics with Baroque splendor, bridging East and West in his art.
In 2019, his descendants revived this fractured beauty under the name BOTANSA VRETHA, allowing the broken elegance of Oriental craftsmanship to bloom anew in the modern age.
