{"id":12251,"date":"2022-10-24T09:10:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-24T08:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pret-a-reporter.co.uk\/blog\/?p=12251"},"modified":"2024-09-17T20:18:57","modified_gmt":"2024-09-17T19:18:57","slug":"memento-mori-the-dark-allure-of-mourning-jewellery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pret-a-reporter.co.uk\/blog\/memento-mori-the-dark-allure-of-mourning-jewellery\/","title":{"rendered":"Memento Mori: The Dark Allure of Mourning Jewellery"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jewellery<\/a>
\nWho is the first person you think of when someone says mourning jewellery<\/em>? It’s Queen Victoria, isn’t it? Known for starting as well as rocking mourning jewellery and attire for forty years after her husband’s passing, Queen Victoria has certainly brought the trend to the forefront. However, the fascination with death and acceptance of\u00a0human mortality, aka the latin phrase memento mori<\/em> (remember that you will die), has had its place among the living for millennia. Queen Victoria wasn’t even the OG PR officer for this whole emo-goth moment. Let’s find out who was.<\/p>\n

Memento Mori: The early years<\/h2>\n

Ancient Egyptians lived their whole lives in anticipation of death, however the philosophy\u00a0about seizing the day as death was coming for each and everyone of us originated in classical antiquity,\u00a0through great thinkers such as Democritus and Plato. Its fame rose rapidly as more people converted to early Christianity. Within Christianity, it’s important to showcase death as a moment of transition into heaven or hell, the latter\u00a0requiring a very specific association with evil, darkness and malice. This was a tool to ensure that good deeds were focussed on while we were alive as they were a ticket to heaven. Hell, of course, awaited everyone who deviated from the programme. Memento mori became a particularly useful reminder that death was not optional, and heaven\u00a0or hell were ultimate destinations for us all. Read up more about religious jewellery here.<\/a><\/p>\n

The philosophy grew into artistic movements, very much connected with the trend to be pious during the medieval\u00a0era.\u00a0Prayer, religious objects, the\u00a0good book – all were tools to prevent your soul from being sucked into the danse macabre,<\/em>\u00a0a derivative of the memento mori movement,\u00a0which was a term for the generic visual of the Grim Reaper dancing his way to snatching your soul into the afterlife. Back in medieval times, this was something that you’d be keen on\u00a0delaying\u00a0for as long as possible.<\/p>\n

The rise of the mourning jewellery trend<\/h2>\n

While it’s fair to say that medieval times were totally the OGs of the memento mori trend, the oldest mourning jewellery documented were mourning rings that dated back to the end of this era – the fourteenth century. Those were generic memento mori rings though, as the trend for mourning jewellery connected to a specific loss started rising in popularity in the late sixteenth century, and cemented its validity in the eighteenth century. Think motifs such as skulls, bones, coffins as well as quotes from or names of the departed on pendants, brooches, lockets and rings. This went hand in hand with the vanitas<\/em> artistic movement, especially prevalent in the Netherlands and Western Europe. Vanitas, or emptiness\/vanity, was an aesthetic that underlined how short and often insignificant human life was, so the philosophy supported living life to the full or becoming the fool who missed out. The symbols often used included skulls, candles, butterflies, dying florals and hourglasses, the latter being a reminder that the clock was ticking.<\/p>\n

From death reminders, to reminders of the dead<\/h2>\n

As mentioned before, two\u00a0directions\u00a0in mourning jewellery established themselves completely, yet one of them seemed to resonate with the folk of the eighteenth century more. The generic memento mori, danse macabre motifs, although still ever present, were slowly going down in popularity in favour of tokens of remembrance. Those who could afford it, made sure that their wills not only covered their funerary arrangements as well as who inherited what, but also commissioned mourning rings and jewellery for their loved ones, reminding them of their own passing. This became so popular, that jewellers started posting lead times of such commissions to manage consumer expectation.<\/p>\n

Queen Victoria, professional mourning jewellery wearer<\/h2>\n

As Queen Victoria became a widow on the 14th December 1861, she fell into despair. She mourned the death of her husband for the rest of her life. Luckily, she still had her second passion by her side – jewellery. This allowed her to manifest her loss through the jewellery choices she made, while literally low-key influencing the whole country to follow suit. Furthermore, this is Imperial Britain we’re talking about, so by country – we also mean parts of South America, Central and South Africa, large chunks of India as well as the whole of Egypt, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. All in all, Queen Victoria had influence over roughly of quarter of the world’s population.<\/p>\n

Stages of mourning<\/h2>\n

Mourning became a little bit of a favourite past time to the richer tier, as they had more money and less jobs to do, so much so that the act of mourning started to develop official stages. Not just any stages, government-approved stages. While these varied from one country to another in their intensity, plus how closely related one was to the deceased, generally speaking women were expected to mourn for longer and more publicly than men. This nifty\u00a0table by artofmourning.com<\/a> will give you an indication of\u00a0how stages of mourning looked like, what they permitted and what they restricted. It’s prudent to say that in the first stages of mourning, not a huge deal was allowed in terms of self-expression beyond the colour black. As the process progressed into the later stages, diamonds were permissible as was a\u00a0slow voyage towards other coloured gemstones.<\/p>\n

Victorian mourning jewellery microtrends<\/h2>\n

Victorian mourning jewellery started\u00a0branching out\u00a0into microtrends. The generic memento mori was still around and kicking, but other slightly more bizarre\u00a0looks also\u00a0began\u00a0creeping up. One such look that\u00a0would make many of us go ewww<\/em>\u00a0was hair jewellery. Think hairstrands braided into bracelets, neckpieces or placed as intricate waves and designs under glass in mourning rings. ArtofMourning.com has a pretty good deep-dive into this look if you click here<\/a>. You\u00a0may think that this is equally strange as it is disgusting, but you’ll be surprised to know that there are many collectors out there today willing to pay thousands for these curiosities.<\/p>\n

Other mourning jewellery microtrends were:<\/p>\n