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Museum Piece - Hair Mourning Brooches
Thursday 3 November 2005
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The Museum Pieces this week are two hair mourning brooches from the Victorian era.
The small one dates from 1826 and the larger from the 1840s.
After the death of Prince Albert in 1861, Victoria went into deep mourning and the nation followed her.
It became a massive industry with special jewellry and outfits and funerals became very popular - the bigger the better and you could even hire mourners to enlarge the crowd!
In the smaller piece there is a lock of a lady's hair. In the larger piece in addition to the hair, there is gold thread and pearl beading intricately woven into the design.
These mourning pieces are hugely collectable today.
