La Peregrina
The world's most famous and most global pearl

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Animating the Peregrina: A Historic Pearl in the Digital Age

A Collaborative Project between Félix Labrador Arroyo and Annemarie Jordan Gschwend

 

​

How can digital animation communicate the complex history of a jewel across five centuries? The animated film on the Peregrina pearl developed by Professor Félix Labrador Arroyo of Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, offers an engaging example of how historical scholarship can reach wider audiences through visual storytelling. Following the pearl’s extraordinary trajectory from the waters of Panama to European royal courts and, ultimately, Elizabeth Taylor’s jewellery collection, the film brings together the histories of an exceptional natural object and the people who coveted, owned and displayed it.

 

Labrador Arroyo’s work in digital humanities and cultural heritage provides the intellectual setting for this undertaking. Through initiatives associated with the CINTER research group, he has explored how digital resources can connect historical research, education and public engagement. His broader approach treats technology as a means of making heritage accessible beyond the physical boundaries of museums, monuments and archives.

 

The Peregrina film applies this principle to the biography of a single, remarkably mobile and global gem. Combining animated sequences, historical portraits, maps and visual transitions, it condenses a geographically extensive and chronologically complex narrative into an accessible short format. The pearl becomes a connecting thread through changing worlds of monarchy, collecting, luxury and celebrity, while its representation in portraiture helps situate it within successive cultures of display.

 

Within Labrador Arroyo’s wider commitment to public history, the film demonstrates animation's interpretative potential for communicating the past. It invites viewers to approach historic jewellery as evidence of human relationships, political ambition, global power and cultural exchange, opening a compelling route from visual curiosity to historical enquiry.

 

For the Peregrina book:

Annemarie Jordan Gschwend

La Peregrina. An Extraordinary Renaissance Pearl

Paul Holberton Publishing, London, 2026

ISBN: 978-1-915401-30-4

Website: 

https://www.paulholberton.com/product-page/la-peregrina-an-extraordinary-renaissance-pearl

 

For Félix Labrador Arroyo, CINTER and the digital projects recreating royal sites and palaces in Spain:

https://www.proyectocinter.com/felix-labrador-arroyo/

https://www.proyectocinter.com

 

 

© Félix Labrador Arroyo and Annemarie Jordan Gschwend