Mourning Ring (Memorial Ring)
A mourning ring - also called a memorial ring - is a finger ring that carries the memory of a deceased person, usually in the form of an inscription, an image, a lock of hair or a fingerprint.
Written by Dr. Helene Vasall
A mourning ring - also called a memorial ring - is a finger ring that carries the memory of one particular person: through an inscription, an inset image, a lock of hair beneath rock crystal or, increasingly over recent decades, a fingerprint cut into gold. The form is attested from the sixteenth century onwards and has outlasted every break in style - no other piece of jewellery is worn with such persistence.
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Occasions and wearers
Unlike the wedding ring, the mourning ring marks not a contractual beginning but a bond that continues beyond an ending. Three occasions are frequent:
- The classic mourning ring after a death, often with the date of death, initials or a lock of the deceased person's hair.
- The memorial ring made during life, exchanged within a family or between a couple - the characteristic case here being the mutual taking of fingerprints.
- The bequest ring, commissioned by the deceased person during their own lifetime and distributed by will to named individuals. This practice was widespread in the eighteenth century and is returning today on a smaller scale.
The ring is frequently worn on the little finger or the middle finger of the right hand; there is no prescription for this.
Paths of personalisation
Five paths dominate present-day practice. They are not mutually exclusive - many pieces combine two of them.
- Fingerprint - the individual course of the lines of one particular person, taken with a film or a silicone pad and cut into the ring shank by laser. Mounted inside or outside, recessed or slightly raised. It also works for the deceased, if the impression was taken during life or shortly after death. See Fingerprint Jewellery.
- Engraving - inside or outside, in capitals, in a historical script, or as a photographed sample of the remembered person's handwriting. Classic inscriptions: initials, a date, a single word, occasionally a verse; see Personalisation Through Engraving (Handwriting, Initials, Dates).
- Hairwork - a small lock beneath a rock-crystal cabochon or plaited as fine threads within a hollow setting. The technique goes back directly to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; see Hairwork.
- Ashes - a carefully measured trace in a tightly sealed capsule, frequently beneath a cabochon or behind a screwed plate.
- Memorial diamond - a stone grown from the carbon of ashes or hair, serving as the central set stone. See Memorial Diamond.
Material and making
The classic material is gold, often yellow or rose gold, because it engraves well and combines well with enamel. Silver was the bourgeois variant in the nineteenth century and is more frequent again today. Any soft precious metal is suitable for fingerprint cutting; with platinum the laser work is more demanding but more durable. On pieces with a hollow setting - for hair or ashes - the closures (screwed, set, glued) are decisive for the piece's service life.
History and diffusion
The mourning ring is one of the oldest European forms of remembrance. In England during The Georgian Era (1714–1837) it was already common to have one or two dozen rings made under the terms of a will and distributed to named individuals, with inscriptions such as In Memory of or the Latin abbreviations Obt. (for obiit, "she died") together with the date. The Victorian Era (1837–1901) standardised the genre: black enamel with a gold cord, a glass compartment for a lock of hair, the name as a monogram on the bezel. With the twentieth century the ritualised form disappeared, but the occasion remained - and with it the wish for a ring that carries one particular person.
Symbolism and meaning
The ring is a closed circle, and that was precisely its meaning in the context of mourning: a bond that death does not sever. Unlike a pendant, which can be taken off and set aside, a ring travels with its wearer. The Memento mori tradition recognised this early - the oldest surviving mourning rings show skulls and the inscription Memento mori on the inner face, legible only to the person wearing them.
See also: Fingerprint Pendant, Fingerprint Jewellery, Personalisation Through Engraving (Handwriting, Initials, Dates), Hairwork, Memorial Diamond, The Georgian Era (1714–1837), Memento mori
Questions about this entry
- What distinguishes a mourning ring from an engagement ring?
A mourning ring almost always carries a reference to one particular person: a date, a name, a monogram, a lock of hair, a fingerprint. Engagement rings look forward; mourning rings look back.
- Is a mourning ring worn on a particular finger?
There is no binding rule. Historically it was frequently worn on the little finger or the middle finger of the right hand, to distinguish it from the wedding ring. Today one's own sense of the matter decides.
- Can a fingerprint ring also be made during a person's lifetime?
Yes. That is in fact the most frequent variant: a couple each take the other's impression and have it cut into a ring. It is the occasion alone - mourning, love, the memory of a chapter of life - that gives the piece its meaning.
Further reading
Related entries
- Jewellery formsFingerprint Pendant
A fingerprint pendant carries the line pattern of a fingerprint, milled or laser-engraved into gold, silver or platinum - today the defining form of modern remembrance jewellery and the technical successor format to the Victorian mourning locket.
- Modern memorial jewelleryFingerprint Jewellery
Fingerprint jewellery carries the individual ridge pattern of a specific person - as a fine laser engraving, in relief or set beneath a cabochon - and so turns a biometric feature into a deeply personal memorial motif.
- Modern memorial jewelleryPersonalisation Through Engraving (Handwriting, Initials, Dates)
Modern laser engraving ties a piece of jewellery precisely to one particular person - through initials, dates of death, photographed handwriting or fingerprint ridges - and is today the most common personalisation technique in memorial jewellery.
- Techniques & craftHairwork
Hairwork is the collective term for all techniques in which human hair becomes the carrier material of a piece of jewellery - from a single lock beneath rock crystal to finely plaited hair weaving in the Victorian showpiece manner.
- PeriodsThe Georgian Era (1714–1837)
The Georgian era spans the reigns of the four kings George I to George IV and of William IV in Britain. In mourning jewellery it is the epoch in which sentimental jewellery was invented - sepia hair painting, the lover's eye, the miniature portrait on ivory, and the posy ring in transition to the memento mori ring.
- PeriodsThe Victorian Era (1837–1901)
The Victorian era is the heyday of mourning jewellery - a period of more than sixty years in which court mourning codes, industrial mass production, new materials (jet, vulcanite, Berlin iron) and Queen Victoria's personal widowhood combined to produce a system of public and private mourning visibility without precedent in European history.
- Core conceptsMemento mori
Memento mori is the Christian-Stoic exhortation to be mindful of one's own death - and at the same time the iconographic soil from which European mourning jewellery of the 17th century grew.
- Modern memorial jewelleryMemorial Diamond
The memorial diamond is a synthetically grown diamond cultivated from the carbon of cremation ashes or a lock of the deceased person's hair - the most technically demanding and most durable keepsake of the present day.