Posted 9 years ago
pipistrelle
(6 items)
More Items from the past. The Earing's have an engraving of a church and grave yard on them and have hall marks on the reverse. the broach has crosses on and also has markings on the back, pretty morbid not something I would wear.
Hiya Pip, your earrings are probably souvenir wear. The church is likely to be some sort of landmark.
There are collectors of snuff boxes, vestas and other small silver boxes with churches and landmarks on them. There are some very famous makers.
I've never seen earrings though. They are quite naive but quite interesting. Well marked also.
Hi Jewels1900 thank you for your comment I have been informed by a jeweller friend that they are in fact " Mourning jewellery" , apparently people use to have sombre items just to wear to funerals and when in mourning, what a bright happy thought lol
Hi Pip, neither of these pieces are morning jewellery. Morning jewellery followed a strict protocol depending on how close you were to the person who died and how long ago they died.
First you started with unpolished jet or bog oak, plain with no settings. Then progressed to polished jet, then to amethysts that were set in gold. You do find silver morning lockets (you can identify those when they have the criss cross pattern of hair inside). These were worn after the morning period was officially over. Sometimes children wore silver jewellery in morning. But not adults.
Churches like this are never depicted in morning jewellery. Most commonly you see churches depicted in jet or bog oak and even though both jet & bog oak were commonly used in morning jewellery, the churches are actually souvenir pieces. Generally Whitby Abby is depicted in jet because jet was mined or found in Whitby. Also, you'll find Iona crosses which are also souvenir pieces, plus Irish themes in blog oak.
Both mourning and souvenir jewellery are specialised fields of collecting and I only touched on them when I was collecting Victorian jewellery.
You know, Queen Victoria was very keen on the whole sentimental jewellery thing. She really led the morning and souvenir jewellery trends during her reign (although they both started ealier). Plus she had her children's milk teeth set into a bracelet and then there's hair & hunting jewellery. Jewellery was even made of elephants hair and tigers teeth.
Wow that really is interesting, thank you Jewels1900