Does mourning jewellery always contain hair?

No. Woven or plaited hair is named in only about one in seven titles, so the feature the category is best known for is a minority of what actually appears. Seed pearls and black enamel are both commoner. Many pieces are simply gold mounts with a glazed compartment that may hold hair or a photograph.

Which pieces turn up most often?

Brooches lead, with thirty of the eighty-three listings, followed by rings at twenty-three, lockets at nineteen and pendants at eleven. Victorian is the label on more than half. A Victorian gold brooch with seed pearls or enamel is the piece you'll meet most. Lockets and pendants are taking a larger share of current stock than of the archive as a whole.

Fossilised wood from the Yorkshire coast, carved and polished for black mourning jewellery. It accounts for part of the carved black work, alongside tortoiseshell piqué. In this archive it appears as brooches, a locket, acorn earrings and bead necklaces. The heaviest piece recorded is a hand-carved jet bead necklace of 70 grams at 24 inches.

How reliable are the Georgian and Victorian dates?

Treat them as the dealer's shorthand rather than a dated attribution. Only fourteen listings carry a clean year, with Victorian used on thirty-two and Georgian on eighteen. Even the decade labels are approximations. The overall span across the archive runs 1700 to 1910.

Are silhouette and portrait pieces part of this category?

Yes, they sit under the same sentimental heading. Silhouette rings appear three times, two described as Continental and one backed with verre églomisé. Also here are a sepia portrait pendant, a hand-tinted photograph brooch, a hand-painted portrait ring and a silhouette portrait brooch. Hand-painted work sits well above plain hairwork in the range.

How often does mourning jewellery come up for sale?

Twenty-eight dealers have listed in this category on Sellingantiques, and roughly eleven pieces come to market a year. That's a steady trickle rather than a stream. Oddities surface within it: a carved stag antler swivel brooch, a William IV gold vinaigrette with a hair compartment, a jet Mizpah locket necklace.

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Antique Mourning Jewellery

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Small gold and silver jewellery made to remember the dead: brooches, rings, lockets and pendants, often set with woven hair, seed pearls or black enamel.