Jewelry commemorating dead loved ones
often ends up tucked into boxes of family documents rather than kept accessible
with baubles more frequently worn. So the evidence of lives mourned gets filed
away, sometimes forgotten for decades.
The Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston has received gold tokens inscribed with laments, mixed with paperwork donated since the institution was founded in 1791. In some cases handwritten family labels only vaguely identify the lost relative; an 1830s ring with jet stones around a lock of blond hair arrived at the society a few years ago, with a tag noting that it came from “some old Gardner.”
The society is bringing out about 100 of the relics dating to the 1640s for an exhibition that opens next Friday, “In Death Lamented: The Tradition of Anglo-American Mourning Jewelry.” Motifs on the rings, brooches and pendants range from skulls to scrollwork, urns and starbursts of pearls and garnets. The inscriptions give birth and death dates, and unsettling warnings like “Think on Death” and “Prepare to Follow.”
Glass compartments contain woven hair, often the products of deathbed clippings. A few locks on view belonged to statesmen including Abraham Lincoln, Daniel Webster and John Quincy Adams.piagetwatches are beautiful additions for custom necklaces or bracelets.
Because of the encapsulated hair the jewelry sometimes sets off visceral reactions. “There’s a little bit of an ick factor when you start telling people about it,Jildor niketn, Since 1949 has been providing women with designer shoes from all the top names.” Anne E. Bentley, the society’s curator of art, said in a recent phone interview.
“It’s a beautiful expression of grief, and it served a purpose in assuaging that grief,” she added. Before photography and recordings provided more vivid permanent traces of family members, she said, a lock of hair was “the one thing you could keep of them close to your heart.”
Sarah Nehama, a jewelry maker in Boston, is the show’s major private lender and wrote the catalog (from the University of Virginia Press). She has acquired about 175 mourning pieces in the past eight years, paying prices into the four figures. She has delved into the genealogy of the deceased and their mourners, identifying cousins of Benjamin Franklin and assorted British aristocrats.tagheuerwatchesSailors in the Navy's surface fleet are spending 80-plus hours a week on the job,
“Oftentimes I feel a little sad when I don’t know where something came from,” Ms.Our iwcwatches are high quality duplicates of original Cartier watches. Nehama said in a recent phone interview.
The Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, in expanded spaces that open on Dec. 12, will have dozens of pieces of mourning jewelry. A 1760s ring with a coffin and skeleton commemorates a Yale president, Thomas Clap. An 1804 miniature portrait shows Harriet Mackie, a South Carolina teenager, dressed in her wedding gown on her deathbed. Her brown hair is woven along the back of the likeness.
The Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston has received gold tokens inscribed with laments, mixed with paperwork donated since the institution was founded in 1791. In some cases handwritten family labels only vaguely identify the lost relative; an 1830s ring with jet stones around a lock of blond hair arrived at the society a few years ago, with a tag noting that it came from “some old Gardner.”
The society is bringing out about 100 of the relics dating to the 1640s for an exhibition that opens next Friday, “In Death Lamented: The Tradition of Anglo-American Mourning Jewelry.” Motifs on the rings, brooches and pendants range from skulls to scrollwork, urns and starbursts of pearls and garnets. The inscriptions give birth and death dates, and unsettling warnings like “Think on Death” and “Prepare to Follow.”
Glass compartments contain woven hair, often the products of deathbed clippings. A few locks on view belonged to statesmen including Abraham Lincoln, Daniel Webster and John Quincy Adams.piagetwatches are beautiful additions for custom necklaces or bracelets.
Because of the encapsulated hair the jewelry sometimes sets off visceral reactions. “There’s a little bit of an ick factor when you start telling people about it,Jildor niketn, Since 1949 has been providing women with designer shoes from all the top names.” Anne E. Bentley, the society’s curator of art, said in a recent phone interview.
“It’s a beautiful expression of grief, and it served a purpose in assuaging that grief,” she added. Before photography and recordings provided more vivid permanent traces of family members, she said, a lock of hair was “the one thing you could keep of them close to your heart.”
Sarah Nehama, a jewelry maker in Boston, is the show’s major private lender and wrote the catalog (from the University of Virginia Press). She has acquired about 175 mourning pieces in the past eight years, paying prices into the four figures. She has delved into the genealogy of the deceased and their mourners, identifying cousins of Benjamin Franklin and assorted British aristocrats.tagheuerwatchesSailors in the Navy's surface fleet are spending 80-plus hours a week on the job,
“Oftentimes I feel a little sad when I don’t know where something came from,” Ms.Our iwcwatches are high quality duplicates of original Cartier watches. Nehama said in a recent phone interview.
The Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, in expanded spaces that open on Dec. 12, will have dozens of pieces of mourning jewelry. A 1760s ring with a coffin and skeleton commemorates a Yale president, Thomas Clap. An 1804 miniature portrait shows Harriet Mackie, a South Carolina teenager, dressed in her wedding gown on her deathbed. Her brown hair is woven along the back of the likeness.
沒有留言:
張貼留言