Brooch
Jewellery
Inventory number
2020.1.27.8.JW.BC.C1860.GBDescription
Mourning brass mounted brooch with a medallion containing inside three different locks of hair connected with golden strings and decorated with tiny seed pearls. The brooch could also be worn as a necklace with a hoop on the back.For Queen Victoria, the real art was in mourning. After her husband, Prince Albert, died in 1861, she publicly grieved him until her own death 40 years later. Often, Victoria wore a locket of Albert’s hair around her neck. Queen Victoria was the monarch of mourning, a celebrity who influenced how grieving women dressed and behaved in Europe and the United States. But for many people in Victorian times, the amount of hair involved in remembering loved ones went far beyond a little lock in a necklace. Hair jewelry was common, too—and not just the kind of locket that Queen Victoria wore. It could be a brooch, or a pendant with hair woven in the middle, or even a bracelet of hair. In its heyday, hair jewelry was considered both sentimental and fashionable. It caught on in Europe sometime before the 19th century, and then fell into vogue in the United States around the Civil War.
Materials
BrassGlass
Hair
Golden string
Pearls
Origin
circa 1860 United KingdomDimensions
Length : 5.5 cmHeight : 4.5 cm