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On January 12, 1924, he wrote to his collaborators in America: "Very soon I will start my paintings. Paints and canvases will be delivered in eight days. – "His Country" will be divided into three parts: "The Pearls of Quest", "The Burning of Darkness" and "The Candles of Advent". God willing, you will see them in America". The first six works of this series – "Remember", "The Book of Wisdom", "The Pearls of Quest", "A Hurrying Man", and "A Leading Woman" have a similar compositional structure. The first plan – most often it is the bottom right corner of the picture – where on a ledge of a rock or on a narrow mountain slope, a genre scene takes place, and the second plan – that of clouds, behind which there is Kanchenjunga, shining with snow. Observing the local culture and traditions, the artist turns in his paintings to the life of Buddhists. Thus, in "The Pearls of Quest", that Roerich started to paint in February 1924, he painted a lama fingering pearl beads, and a boy sitting in front of him and listening to him intently. From the artist's letter to the collaborators, it follows that Roerich had initially planned a slightly different scene: "two young Tibetans string pearls, and behind them, there is a chain of swirling clouds. And above them, a chain of snowy mountains". "The world aspires to seek", as Roerich wrote. – "A creator looks for forms. Quest is blessed." (Agni Yoga). Perhaps, in the picture we see a teacher instructing his pupil. The artist very vividly conveyed the sense of the earthly world – with its shades of ocher and ruby, and that of the heavenly world – in a gentle, pastel palette of light tones.

The pearls, symbolizing a precious treasure in Buddhism, represent the best in us in the works of N. Roerich, and in this context, the most precious quest of our spirit. E.I. Roerich, the artist's wife, liked to quote a saying from the Bhagavad Gita: "I am the thread on which all these ideas are strung, each of them like a pearl". "The Pearls of Quest". The Equilibrium of the Earthlу and the Heavenly.

Z. Fosdik. My Teachers.