What distinguishes Biedermeier mourning jewellery from Victorian work?

Three central differences. Material: Biedermeier works chiefly with hair and Berlin iron, hardly at all with Whitby jet (which was only intermittently available to German-speaking workshops). Mood: Biedermeier is domestic and introverted, the Victorian courtly and public. Code: Biedermeier has no strictly formalised three-stage order of court mourning but a more flexible bourgeois practice. The piece is remembrance more than a marker of status.

Why does the forget-me-not matter so much in Biedermeier?

In these years the forget-me-not becomes the universal cipher of bourgeois Romantic remembrance. It appears in mourning jewellery, love tokens, friendship albums, letters, embroidery and porcelain painting alike. The small blue flower, with a meaning literally spelled out in its name ("do not forget"), suits the Biedermeier conception of remembrance as a gentle, familial, lifelong act. Unlike the Victorian weeping willow, the forget-me-not is not specific to mourning - it covers every form of affectionate remembrance.

What are the most important Biedermeier jewellery forms?

Four principal forms. The hairwork brooch - a brooch with woven or patterned hairwork under rock crystal. The hair bracelet - a multi-part bracelet with plaited or woven hair, often made as a family bracelet using the hair of several people. The mourning locket with sepia hair painting - the continuing Georgian tradition, carried on into Biedermeier. Berlin iron jewellery - a brooch, bracelet or chain of finely cast iron, often with the inscription Gold gab ich für Eisen ("I gave gold for iron").

Biedermeier (1815–1848)

Biedermeier is the German-speaking mourning-jewellery epoch between the Congress of Vienna and the revolution of 1848 - a bourgeois, introverted period of forget-me-nots, Berlin iron and hairwork mosaic, with an understanding of mourning jewellery oriented more towards the family and the private sphere than towards the court.

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