Two wild populations of the freshwater pearl mussel, , from Poyang Lake and Dongting Lake were selected as the base populations for breeding. The purple was included for its objective traits of purple shell nacre and a large body mass. To evaluate the effects of five generations of selection on , offspring families were established in the breeding group with the selected line and the control group with the ordinary population as parents. Comparisons were made of the shell nacre color (with CIELAB colorimetric measurements) and the growth traits of the two groups. The shell nacre color of the breeding group was deeper and richer than that of the control group. L^*, C^*, and dE^* of the breeding group were significantly different from those of the control group ( < 0.01), being 17.13% lower, 20.55% higher, and 22.56% higher than those of the control group, respectively. -L^* and dE^* gradually increased from the front to the back of the organism, indicating that the shell nacre color deepened gradually, whereas it did not change significantly in the control groups. The color parameters did not differ significantly at the same positions on the mussel shell ( > 0.05). The differences in the growth traits of the two groups were also highly significant ( < 0.01), and the shell length, shell height, shell width, and bodyweight of the breeding group were 12.30%, 9.95%, 8.60%, and 36.34% higher than those of the control group, respectively. A combined analysis of the shell nacre color parameters and the growth traits showed that B3, B2, B4, B5, and B6 displayed superior color and growth traits, and can be used for the further development of the stock. The correlation indices between the shell nacre color and growth traits were low, so that growth traits cannot be indirectly selected based on the shell nacre color. This study identified some offspring families with superior purple shell nacre or superior growth traits, and extends our research into germplasm resources for breeding of .