Gold in Mourning Jewellery
Gold is historically the most dominant carrier material of mourning and memorial jewellery - usually in muted alloys, often contrasted with black enamel or as a restrained gold setting around a dark principal material such as jet, onyx or a plait of hair.
Written by Dr. Helene Vasall
Gold is by far the most important carrier material of mourning and memorial jewellery. Over the centuries it has fulfilled two core functions: as a material that represents an investment and survives across generations (unlike perishable substances such as hair or enamel), and as the technical basis for engraving, hollow settings and black-enamel coatings. Unlike other jewellery materials, gold barely changes its meaning in the mourning context - it is continuously present from the Roman aurea bulla through medieval reliquary pendants (see Reliquary Pendant) to the modern ash pendant (see Ash Pendant).
Material and alloy
Pure gold (24 carat, 999/1000) is too soft for jewellery. The jewellery market therefore uses alloys whose proportions are stated in carats or in thousandths:
- 9 carat (375) - 37.5% gold, very resistant, permissible in Great Britain from 1854, widely used for inexpensive mourning jewellery
- 14 carat (585) - 58.5% gold, common modern standard alloy, robust and sufficiently gold in colour
- 18 carat (750) - 75% gold, premium alloy, well suited to elaborate goldsmith's work, high corrosion resistance
- 22 carat (916) - 91.6% gold, traditional in India and in Georgian England (see The Georgian Era (1714–1837)), softer for jewellery
- 24 carat (999) - pure gold, for pure investment pieces, in jewellery only as a thin gold layer (gilding) because of its softness
The admixture of other metals determines the colour:
- Yellow gold: gold with silver and copper in balanced proportions - the classic gold colour
- Rose gold: gold with a higher copper content - a redder, "warmer" tone
- White gold: gold with palladium or nickel - silvery white, often additionally rhodium-plated
- Green gold: gold with a high silver content - rare, historically in Art Nouveau
In the mourning context, yellow gold and rose gold historically dominated; white gold is a late phenomenon of the 20th century.
Historical periods
Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Gold has been the most important material of burial jewellery since antiquity (see Funerary Jewellery). Roman mourning rings (anuli funebres) were cast in gold; medieval reliquary pendants used gold settings for the religious substance.
Georgian period (1714–1837). Gold dominates at high degrees of purity (often 18–22 carat). Sentimental jewellery with plaits of hair under rock crystal is usually set in gold (see The Georgian Era (1714–1837), Hairwork).
Early Victorian (1837–1870). With the rise of ritualised mourning, special "mourning gold" pieces emerge: 18 carat gold with applied black enamel (see Black Enamel (Schwarzemail)), often with engraved inscriptions.
Late Victorian (1870–1901). 9 carat gold dominates the middle-class mass market. Matted surfaces and black-enamel borders conform to the strict mourning dress code. Wholesale workshops in Birmingham and Pforzheim supply large quantities of industrially made pieces.
Edwardian (1901–1914). Brighter, glossier gold replaces the austere matted pieces. Mourning etiquette relaxes (see The Edwardian Era (1901–1910/1914)).
20th and 21st centuries. Gold remains the dominant carrier material; with the rise of modern memorial forms (ash pendants, memorial diamonds, fingerprint jewellery) it establishes itself as the material for the personalised pieces of modern remembrance culture.
Goldsmith's techniques in mourning jewellery
Gold offers a particular technical advantage for memorial jewellery: it is at once soft enough for fine detail work and stable enough for long-term preservation. Important techniques:
Engraving. Interior and exterior engraving as the vehicle for inscriptions, initials, dates of death and mottoes (see Engraving and Inscriptions). For the interior engraving of mourning rings, gold is the standard material - the inner face often bears the name and date of the deceased.
Hollow setting. Gold settings with a rock-crystal viewing window hold locks of hair, miniature portraits or (in modern pieces) ash capsules. The technique goes back to the medieval reliquary construction (see Reliquary Pendant).
Black enamel on gold. The most important mourning goldsmith's technique of the 19th century. A layer of black glass flux is applied to the gold ground and fired; the gold serves as the carrier and flashes through as a fine border (see Black Enamel (Schwarzemail)).
Niello inlay. A black sulphur-silver-copper alloy is inlaid into engraved lines on the gold surface - a rarer, but specifically mourning-related technique (see Niello (Black Inlay Technique)).
Value, care and recycling
Gold mourning pieces have a twofold value: a material value (via the gold weight and the daily price) and a memorial value. With inherited pieces these values occasionally collide - historical pieces were frequently melted down in economically difficult periods, which has reduced today's surviving stock of antique mourning jewellery.
The care of gold memorial jewellery is comparatively simple:
- Gold pieces tolerate contact with water, can be cleaned with a jewellery cloth and are insensitive to perspiration
- Black-enamel coatings are sensitive to knocks and chemical cleaners - never use ultrasound on pieces with enamel
- Hollow settings with an incorporated memorial substance (ashes, hair) should be stored dry and not worn in water
- With very old pieces (Georgian, early Victorian) an occasional inspection of the settings by a goldsmith is advisable
Gold remains - unlike other historical mourning materials such as jet, vulcanite or bog oak - the most important carrier material in modern memorial jewellery practice as well. It combines historical continuity with material value and technical possibilities that no other material offers in this breadth.
Questions about this entry
- Which gold alloys are historically typical of mourning jewellery?
Several alloys dominate, depending on the period. Georgian (1714–1837): soft 18–22 carat gold of high purity and intense gold colour. Early Victorian (1837–1870): 18 carat as the standard, frequently covered with black enamel. Late Victorian (1870–1901): increasingly 14 carat and 9 carat (permissible in Great Britain from 1854), often matted in order to reduce the shine. Modern: 14 carat (585) and 18 carat (750) as the standard, supplemented by rose gold and matt yellow gold for historicising memorial pieces.
- Why was gold in the mourning context often matted?
Under the strict Victorian mourning dress code (see The Middle Classes and Mourning Jewellery in the Nineteenth Century) visible shine was considered inappropriate. Matted gold - produced by an acid bath or by mechanical matting - conformed to this code without the material itself having to be changed. One alternative was to cover the gold ground with black enamel (see Black Enamel (Schwarzemail)) - a technique that was standardised at the height of mourning fashion (1860–1880).
- Is gold still used for memorial jewellery today?
Yes - gold remains the dominant carrier material for high-quality memorial jewellery. Current memorial pieces mostly use 14 carat (585) or 18 carat (750), frequently in yellow gold or rose gold. With fingerprint jewellery (see Fingerprint Pendant) gold permits very fine detail relief that would be harder to realise in stainless steel or silver. Ash pendants and memorial diamond settings (see Ash Pendant, Memorial Diamond) are likewise predominantly made in gold.
Further reading
- Gold - Materialien der Goldschmiedekunst - Erhard Brepohl (2005)
- Sentimental Jewellery - Shire Library - Ann Louise Luthi (2007)
- Mourning Dress - A Costume and Social History - Lou Taylor (1983)
Related entries
- Core conceptsMourning Jewellery
Mourning jewellery is body adornment that signals a death, binds the memory of a deceased person, or does both at once - since the 17th century a jewellery type in its own right, with a material language of its own.
- Core conceptsMemorial Jewellery
Memorial jewellery is jewellery that deliberately binds itself to one particular person - through an inscription, a photograph, hair, ashes or, the defining medium today, a digitally captured fingerprint.
- Core conceptsSentimental Jewellery
Sentimental jewellery is the jewellery of the age of sensibility between 1760 and 1840 - pieces in which love, friendship and grief share the same imagery, and in which hair, miniature painting and personal inscriptions first become the load-bearing form.
- MaterialsSilver in Mourning Jewellery
In the 19th century silver was the popular mourning carrier material of the bourgeois middle class and is today the most widespread material of modern memorial jewellery - cheaper than gold, more precise to engrave than stainless steel and with a long symbolic tradition as a material of purity and of memento mori iconography.
- MaterialsBlack Enamel (Schwarzemail)
Black enamel is a glass frit coloured with manganese oxide and fused in thin layers onto gold or silver - the most expensive variant of Victorian mourning jewellery and the preferred carrier ground for inscriptions.
- Techniques & craftEngraving and Inscriptions
Engraving is the oldest personalisation technique in memorial jewellery - from the Baroque memento mori ring to modern laser micro-engraving, which today inscribes initials, dates of death and even photographed handwriting into metal.
- 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.
- Jewellery formsMourning 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.
- Jewellery formsMourning Locket
The mourning locket is a pendant worn on a neck chain with an interior compartment - a concealed carrier of hair, photograph or inscription that keeps the memento close to the body and has been, from the eighteenth century to the present, the most important private form of mourning jewellery.
- Jewellery formsMourning 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.
- 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.