It’s time for the second History Hop, hosted by Leah Curtis. I did this hop last year, creating a necklace and earrings inspired by the Art Nouveau movement. This time around, I’ve focused on Victorian jewellery—specifically English Romanticism and mourning jewellery.
The Victorian era spanned the long reign of Queen Victoria, who ascended the throne in 1837 and died in 1901. Queen Victoria, who was only 18 when she inherited the throne, loved jewellery, and her tastes in jewellery and fashion influenced the world!
Victorian jewellery is classified into three periods: the Romantic period or English Romanticism, which spanned 1837-1860, the Grand Period from 1860-1885, and the Aesthetic Period from 1885-1901. English Romantic jewellery featured stylised and symbolic themes from nature, including flowers, leaves, grapes, and berries, as well as motifs such as snakes, birds and insects. Gold was the prominent metal, but due to its scarcity at the time—the US and Australian gold rushes didn’t happen until the mid-1800s—filigree and other light forms such as chasing and repousse were popular. Gemstones and natural materials including tortoise shell, lava, jet, agate, bog oak, ivory and coral were frequently used. Jewellery was largely still handcrafted during this period.
The increase in English tourism to destinations throughout Europe made jewellery a frequent souvenir, with cameos from Pompei, micro-mosaics from Rome, enamelled plaques from Switzerland and more coming back to England. Cameos had been around since Roman times, and enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in the Victorian era, in materials including shell, coral, onyx, carnelian and agate.
Brooches, bracelets and rings were the most popular jewellery forms, in part due to the high necklines and bonnets of daytime fashions. Necklaces tended to be worn close to the neck and ranged from simple chokers, ribbons and chains displaying a pendant or locket to elaborate designs incorporating gemstones and more. Queen Victoria also loved charm bracelets, and would often give her family members charms as gifts.
Mourning jewellery was also prevalent during Victorian times, although it had been around for a few centuries. Hair jewellery was very prevalent, with elaborate woven pieces of jewellery made from human hair, as well as simple lockets holding small locks of hair from deceased loved ones. But mourning jewellery really came to the fore after Queen Victoria’s beloved husband Prince Albert died in 1861. The bereaved queen entered a long period of full mourning, with strict protocols requiring both black dress and black jewellery, utilising dark gems and materials including jet and onyx, black enamel and black glass.
So, after reading as much as I could find about English Romanticism and mourning jewellery I decided to create two pieces inspired by the era, a cameo necklace and a charm bracelet in a dark gothic style inspired by mourning jewellery.
I found it difficult to find images of cameo jewellery specifically from the Victorian era—plenty of cameos, but mostly on fairly simple chains. Most of the pictures I found came from the mid-20th century revival of Victorian style jewellery and later. My version has a green and white cameo on an antique brass frame, with some brass connectors. Although probably not particularly authentic, I used freshwater pearls and some faceted Czech crystal to highlight the green background of the cameo.
The gorgeously gothic dark tones of Fallen Angel Brass inspired the mourning charm bracelet. I used a lovely heavy chain for the bracelet, and dangled a series of charms from it including hearts, flowers, an acorn, a tiny hinged book of love, a dragonfly, a lock and key, a swallow, interspersed with black and smoky grey crystals set into pronged settings, dark grey pearls, black Czech crystals and even a few tiny garnet red Swarovski crystals. I did plan to include some fabulous black intaglios (reverse cameos with the image carved into the glass) set into an ornate frame, but I ran into problems getting the glass to stay glued in the frame, and decided to save that for another day.
Now that you’ve seen what inspired me, please take some time to look at the creations of the other blog hop participants. There is a wonderful range of time periods and places represented amongst them!
Leah Curtis – Indus Valley – beadyeyedbunny.blogspot.co.uk <– Our Hostess!
Laney Mead – Māori – laney-izzybeads.blogspot.co.uk
Becca – Art Nouveau – godsartistinresidence.blogspot.com
Melissa – English Romanticism and Mourning Jewellery – beadrecipes.wordpress.com <– You are Here!
Tracy Stillman – Native American – tracystillmandesigns.com
Gerda – English Romanticism and Mourning Jewellery – gerdascraftsblog.blogspot.com
Liz E – Native North American – beadcontagion.blogspot.com
Ahowin – Māori (New Zealand) – blog.ahowinjewelry.com
Jasvanti – Indus Valley – jewelrybyjasvanti.blogspot.com
Lizzie – Art Nouveau – theneedtobead.blogspot.co.uk
Julia Hay – Merovingian – pandanimal.blogspot.co.uk
Dini – Celtic – angazabychanges.blogspot.nl
Caroline – Art Nouveau – blueberribeads.co.uk
Charlie – Moche of Peru – clay-space.com/blog
Karin – China – maverickbeads.blogspot.com
Niky Sayers – Rome – silverniknats.blogspot.com
Marcia Dunne – Celtic and Mourning Jewellery – thealternativefoundry.blogspot.co.uk
anafiassa – Mesopotamia – anafiassa.blogspot.com
Kokopelli – Native American – kokopellidesign.blogspot.com
Christa – Native American – adventuresofwonebeadywoman.blogspot.com
Clair – Roman – obstinatepursuit.blogspot.co.uk
Susan Bowie – Native American – susanbowie.wordpress.com
Gloria Allen – English Romanticism – gloriaallendesigns.blogspot.com
Sheila Garrett – Early Russia – 4brownowl.blogspot.co.uk
beadrecipes 