What distinguishes a mourning necklace from an ordinary one?

The mourning necklace is matt black or muted in tone. It dispenses with lustre, pale gemstones and any conspicuous gleam of gold. Historical pieces are made of jet, vulcanite, bog oak, onyx or black-enamelled gold. The links are often carved as oak, weeping willow or ivy motifs and thus carry the mourning connotation symbolically. An ordinary necklace of gleaming gold or silver would not have been socially acceptable in the half-mourning and full mourning of the nineteenth century.

What lengths are usual?

Three lengths are historically documented. Short (40–45 cm) as a close-fitting necklace, often with a small pendant. Medium (60–80 cm) as a sautoir with a large locket, looped once around the neck. Long (120–180 cm) as a long guard chain, wound several times around the neck with a watch or locket at the end. Modern pieces generally follow the short or medium variant.

What can I wear as a mourning necklace today?

Today the mourning necklace has turned into a discreet remembrance necklace. Usual variants: a plain gold chain with a small pendant (a locket, a fingerprint pendant, an ash pendant), an onyx or freshwater-pearl necklace, a leather or textile cord with a remembrance element. The strict black variant of the nineteenth century is now only rarely worn - the social dress code of mourning no longer exists (see Mourning Rituals in the German-Speaking World).

Mourning Necklace

The mourning necklace is a chain worn at the neck in black or muted material which, in the second half of the nineteenth century, became the standard daytime wear of the mourning period, and which lives on today as a reduced remembrance variant with a pendant.

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