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An example of Victorian mourning jewellery.

During the Victorian era in England, jewellery trends often reflected the tone of current events.

History

During the reign of Queen Victoria (reigned 1837-1901), the aesthetics of jewellery underwent several changes. Historians divide the reign of Queen Victoria to three parts: the Early Victorian or "Romantic", the Middle Victorian or "Grand" and the Late Victorian or Aesthetic periods. Each of these periods has its specific gems, motifs and metals and fabrication techniques.

The Romantic period represented deep religious and emotional states. Religion was a central part of life, and with this came emphasis on ideas such as love and nostalgia. The period reflected the love of the new ruling couple (Queen Victoria and Albert, Prince Consort). Recurring jewellery motifs include: hands, hearts, crosses and knots. Motifs inspired from nature were also common such as serpents and snakes along with bird, flowers and trees. as a matter of fact, snake jewellery was considered a symbol of eternal love. Jewellery reflecting the form of a flower was often lavishly adorned with gold and gemstones. most gems used are agate, amber, amethyst, diamonds emerald and Quartz.

The Grand period is a continuation of the Romantic era in a sense that a lot of trends that started in the Early period reached their peak in this one. Although a dainty locket containing a picture of a loved one or a lock of hair pinpoint the piece as Romantic Period jewellery, a brooch with a dark gemstone framed with braided hair would indicate that the piece is from the Grand period.

Methods and Production

The art of jewellery making during the Victorian Era was a trade that was taken up by both men and women though it was a predominantly male trade. Initially, the women jewellery makers of Britain took up jewellery making as a hobby and were only called on to do things such as polishing and buffering. The designing of jewellery was taken up by the females while the men were in charge of the more skilled based work such as metal crafting and enameling.

During the Arts and Crafts movement of the 1850’s, people wanted handmade jewellery made out of cheaper materials such as enamels and semiprecious stones as well as silver, which was a cheaper alternative to gold and other gemstones. This work required a host of different people working together to complete such as silversmiths, stonecutters, and jewelers. The followers of the Arts and Crafts movement cared less for the technique used to make the jewellery, but instead searched for the jewellery with interesting and good designs.

In Victorian America, the idea of using jewellery was brought over by European settlers in forms such as sentimental, mourning, and fashion jewellery. Much like in Britain, jewellery making was predominantly male with only a few women working on the jewellery making process. Jewellery was eventually mass produced due to the addition of steam- powered machinery such as power presses, automatic drops, wire-bending, button, watch, and locket case-making machines, hydraulic-rocking and stamp presses.

Jewellery and Status

Jubilee Necklace - Worn by young Queen Elizabeth II (1926-)

The Victorian Era was a time of great financial growth for many and so jewellery wearing became an outward symbol of status and wealth. Jewellery symbolizes significance in Victorian society and aids in furthering Victorian fashion placing importance on industrialization, capitalism, and the separate spheres. The jewel worn can express subtleties to an observer and may suggest religious meaning, i.e. amethyst is very common, but diamonds and emeralds on the other hand are rare and therefore worthy of adorning. This is supported by work that claims jewellery has an exchange value that communicates cultural meanings and has significant influence on socio-political positions and divisions.

Jewellery became a marker of wealth and its effect on etiquette (in particular, the etiquette of women) became substantial. Jewels were important for the wives of wealthy men to wear, as it was a subtle marker of the riches of the man. However, young women were expected not to wear many jewels, as jewellery was seen as an item for the middle aged. Thus, royalty and the top echelon of society wore rarer gems such as diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds in necklaces, chokers, and bracelets that signified status. jewellery in general was usually worn on special occasions. Queen Victoria herself was described as being “...very fond of jewellery, an essential taste in Royalty, as she was to receive a considerable amount of jewels as presents and official offerings throughout her long reign…”. The Victorian Era was the last in which the crown jewels were ordered in quantity. Queen Victoria owned mostly new state jewels, demonstrating the modern styles and the importance that the jewels held. In the beginning of Victoria’s reign, she was rarely seen without any form of diamonds, as “diamonds were empire.”

Jewellery became a form of rivalry exemplified combat in the courts. During a 1855 series of visits between Victoria and Napoleon III, the royal ladies of the court wore as many jewels as their bodies could handle, sometimes layering neck pieces in order to show up a rival. Eugénie de Montijo, Empress Consort of the French, retaliated by wearing her own brand new jewellery. Though not actually a violent battle, the jewels represented the wealth held by both nations and both nations wanted to show off that they were more powerful. Common people began wearing jewellery as the production of jewellery changed. Once it became easier and cheaper to make jewellery, it became a “good with little or no functional purpose and little intrinsic value”. Mail order catalogs became easier for anyone to buy jewellery and status became null and void.

Scholar Jean Arnold has stated that jewellery also influenced politics. The conflict of aesthetics and politics in gender is revealed in some ways by jewellery, as jewellery is an almost exclusively worn-by-women object. Arnold further wrote that the materiality of jewellery implied money and male economics despite the aesthetics and subtleties of jewellery being a feminine distinction. Jewellery as a material within consumerism inherently supported the masculine-geared economics of the Victorian times, despite being a heavily feminized material and contributing to the feminine standards of aesthetics.

Queen Victoria and 19th Century Jewellery

The Victorian Era represented itself with influential styles that helped shape fashion we know in the 21st century.

Queen Victoria was seen as a pioneer for new advancements in fashion throughout the era. She utilized styles that were used during the Napoleonic Period, but ultimately gave the styles a new and exciting face value. Victoria was a fan of jewellery and it had a large effect on jewellery throughout the Victorian era. She often wrote of jewellery in her journals and liked the sentimental type jewellery. She was very fond of jewellery and received many pieces throughout her reign. She even wore pieces that were inspired by Albert which further contributes to her favor of sentimental jewellery. Historian Charlotte Gere, mentions that Queen Victoria herself wore a large sapphire, bordered by twelve large diamonds which was given to her by [her husband] Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, for their wedding ceremony. Along with the help of other royals and elite members of society. Fashion, specifically necklaces and chokers, were used to display status, prestige, and wealth.

Queen Victoria wearing the Coronation Necklace.

Victoria received many gifts throughout her lifetime that included diamonds, sapphires, rubies, and emeralds. Although these precious elements presented to her were the most highly sought after forms of jewellery in the entire world many of them became common for every day people to own. Diamonds played a huge role throughout Victorian jewellery. With diamonds becoming so readily available they were used in many different areas of jewellery making with things such as rings, earrings, crowns, and headgear.

Famous pieces include; the Jubilee Necklace, the Queen Anne and Queen Caroline Pearl Necklace, and the Coronation Necklace.

Cameos used during the Victorian Era.

Jewellery Materials

Victorian agate jewellery has been called “Scottish agate” or “Scottish pebble jewellery.” In many cases, it is a misnomer because a great deal of “Scottish agate” was made in England, not Scotland, and often using stones that came from Germany rather than the British Isles. The first jewellery to make use of attractive pebbles was produced in Scotland, and agate jewellery does owe its popularity to the unbridled enthusiasm for all things Scottish that swept England in the mid-1800s. As pebble jewellery became increasingly popular in both England and France, England’s foremost jewellery manufacturing center, Birmingham, began full-scale production of “Scottish” baubles. With booming business, Birmingham began a quest for new sources of agates and began importing quantities of non-indigenous stones from Germany, India, and Africa.

Agate is a variety of quartz, a mineral composed of silicon dioxide. It can be clear and colorless or have variegated color arranged in layered stripes such as banded agate (usually black or brown and white) or Montrose agate (gray striated). It can have cloudlike or mosslike dendritic formations, as in moss agate (milky white agate with green inclusions) or mocha agate (brown inclusions). There are three distinct categories of quartz: Transparent which is crystalline stones such as amethysts, citrines, and cairngorms. There is translucent, which includes chalcedony, carnelian or cornelian, and bloodstone. There is also opaque, which would include jasper.

Cut-steel jewellery is comprised of tiny nails or studs mounted into base plates. It has been said that the earliest source for cut-steel was the horseshoe nails that littered the streets of Woodstock, Wolverhampton, and Salisbury.

Berlin iron was made by molding shapes in wax, impressing these shapes in a fine sand, and then filling the impression with molten iron. The cast pieces were left to cool, finished by hand, and lacquered black. The most common examples of this jewellery are parures as well as rings, combs, and fans.

Jewelry Types

Cameos

A cameo is a material that is carved with a raised relief that often depicts a profile of a face or a mythical scene. They were a revival of the Romanesque era of portraits. Cameos were most often displayed on necklaces as the focal piece or the pendant as they were the most popular kind of pendant in the Victorian era. Many Victorian women wore cameos as they were likened to art, exhibiting a portrait in a wearable method and often portrayed women in their ideal state, playing to the male gaze and the femininity of aesthetics popular at this time. Although it was said of Queen Victoria that “she herself always wore a miniature of Prince Albert set in a bracelet...” Cameos eventually led to the encasement of portraits in jewellery, allowing for individual imperfection to take hold over the idealized feminine state. As less affluent women became more interested in cameo designs, monograms became more stylish over time as wearers desired more personalized objects, that were cheaper than some other options.

Celtic Revival Style

The only truly traditional form of Irish jewellery was the Claddagh ring, a gold wedding ring in the form of hands holding a crowned heart which passed from mother to daughter in the Claddagh district of Galway city. After Queen Victoria's comment about ancient brooches, Dublin jewellers soon appropriated the Early Christian ring-brooches found in Scotland as part of a joint Celtic heritage, making copies of them alongside those found in Ireland. It is not easy to discovery who bought Celtic-revival jewellery beyond the royal family and the Lords Lieutenant's wives. Visual and anecdotal evidence is sparse and the examples in museums rarely have provenances from private owners.

Victorian Mourning Jewellery

Before the death of Prince Albert, jewellery was viewed as a metaphor for the Mourning process and meant particular gems and colors were acceptable. Widows were expected to follow certain protocol when it came to their jewellery selection in the mourning period. In particular, jet, ivory, and pearl jewellery were common for a good grieving widow. Jet, being black, was a well perceived color for mourning. Ivory was allowed, as it is colorless. Pearls held a double meaning in Victorian culture as they represented both tears and beauty.

Mourning brooch containing the hair of a deceased relative

Mourning was expected to occur in waves. At first, one was expected to wear an unpolished jet, as it was the darkest black. The first stage of mourning varied in length, depending on one’s relationship with the deceased, but was generally between six and eight weeks. The second phase of mourning allowed for ivory and pearls, as well as gold, as they were colorless. Ivory and pearls were used to craft different pendants to create motifs. Ivory in mourning jewellery would be shaped into oak-spray with an acorn cup, representing the end of love when one dies. Pearls would be used to make crosses, a typical symbol for death.

A typical aspect of Victorian memoirs is the cutting off of hair on one’s deathbed. Victorians believed giving hair to someone was a deeply intimate act. A hair memento would be taken and generally woven, then placed into a locket or laid in a sheet, glazed, and then cut into a different shape. The hair would become a private piece of jewellery or used as a public piece of art in one’s home.

After the death of Prince Albert in 1861, jewellery evolved to represent more harsh and dismal ideas. (from original wiki article) Queen Victoria went into her infamous period of mourning, and with that, the role of jewellery changed. Black became a more normalized color for daily wear Fashion papers, almost immediately following Prince Albert’s death, began coming up with suggestions for fashionable forms of mourning jewellery. It became almost vogue to wear black and mourning jewellery, as many tried to imitate the fashion of the widowed Queen.

Hair Jewellery

During the Victorian Era hair jewellery was something that held its place among the Crown and the wealthy class. The two main types of hair jewellery that were commonly seen through the era were jewellery that was worn in the hair and jewellery that contained or was made of hair.

The pieces of hair jewellery that had become popular during the era were combs and head dresses. Combs were something that became popular among the rich and wealthy in the late 1800’s and was something that women were often seen wearing. Women often styled their hair with the use of a comb. As Margaret Flower states in her book Victorian jewellery- Late Victorian jewellery, “The hair is arranged in a top-knot, and the heading of a comb stuck into the topknot rises even higher. Most combs have a foundation of tortoiseshell with a gold or jeweled heading”(197). They were not only worn out of fashion, but also to help enhance the style and height of the hair. The most popular combs of the era were the two pronged tortoiseshell pins with a gold coil. Another type of hair jewellery that was popular during the era was the headdresses women wore during times of marriage. The most well known was the headdress worn by Queen Victoria when getting married to Prince Albert. The headdress she wore was a wreath made up of orange flowers. This became so popular that her headdress became the standard “uniform” of brides throughout the era and extended beyond the Victorian Era. Although these types of headdresses Victoria wore became the uniform look, they were also made with jewels that weaved through the hair, and can even be found displayed in some portraits of Victoria herself.

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  Queen Victoria in her head dress made of orange flowers she wore in her marriage to Prince Albert.
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  Victorian Comb made from tortoiseshell that women often wore during the Era.

The other type of hair jewellery that was made during the area was jewellery that actually contained human hair. These pieces of jewellery were often viewed as more special and personal pieces of jewellery. For example, Victoria was presented many types of jewellery to establish power that came along with being the monarch. But as Charlotte Gere mentions in her book Jewellery in the Age of Queen Victoria: a Mirror to the World, Victoria treasured items that came from her friends and family more. Gere states, “This is demonstrated by her attachment to the heart locket containing her husbands hair, which she wore constantly…”. This shows that hair jewellery was not just confined to the actual items that were worn in the hair, but also those that contained hair. During the Victorian Era, hair was something that held a lot of meaning throughout society, and to have or be given a piece of jewellery that was made of or contained hair, especially from a loved one, was something that was looked at as exceptional and precious. Gere mentions that Victoria wrote in her journals about giving Eugenie, Emperor Napoleon’s wife, a bracelet made of her hair, and when the empress received it it brought her to tears. This type of jewellery was something of great sentiment and was cherished by those lucky enough to receive it.

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  A mourning broach of the Victorian Era that was made containing hair of a relative in the center of the broach.

Hair Combs

The most popular jewelry worn on the head during the late Victorian era were elegant and jeweled hair combs. The favored feminine Chignon (hairstyle) of the time period in England fared a perfect match with this jewelry as the hair comb would rest fittingly atop the highest point of the topknot on the back of the neck. Although hair ornaments in general were still worn towards the beginning of the Romantic Period, it wasn’t until the mid-late 19th century during the start of the Grand Period in the Victorian Era that really highlighted the beauty of this jewelry.

This is a standard tortoiseshell hair comb made in 1835.

The most common fashionable hair comb of this time would be one made with the foundation of tortoiseshell teeth and a metal or jeweled heading. The more elegant of hair combs created in the late 19th century would be set with faceted crystals or pearls with black or white enamel at the base. Victorian combs progressed from symmetrical and uniform designs to being more unique and asymmetrical jewelry pieces with signs of openwork later in the 1890's.