What is an ancient tear bottle (lacrimarium)?

A small vessel of glass or clay (5–15 cm high) used in Roman antiquity to keep tears. The bereaved wept into the vessel and placed it in the grave with the deceased - symbolically, as visible proof of the intensity of their grief. Many thousands of lacrimaria survive from Roman excavations. In the nineteenth century Victorian mourning fashion took up the tradition again: small glass tear catchers were made in which a widow caught her tears; at the end of the mourning period the bottle was corked and kept as a keepsake. A modern revival occurs occasionally in the funeral trade.

Which jewellery forms use the tear symbol?

Several. The teardrop pendant - a pendant in the shape of a tear (often worn on a gold chain); frequently with a relic setting inside. The teardrop pearl - a drop-shaped natural pearl as a pendant (see The Pearl in Mourning Jewellery). Drop earrings - long-drop earrings in teardrop form (see Mourning Earrings). The painted tear on a miniature portrait - on sentimental miniature pendants a small painted tear sometimes runs down the cheek of the mourning figure (see Sentimental Jewellery). The tear brooch - a brooch whose form reproduces a stylised tear, often combined with a weeping willow or an angel motif.

Are teardrop ash pendants a modern invention?

The ash variant, yes (see Ash Pendant); the teardrop-with-hollow-setting as such, no. The teardrop pendant with an integrated memorial element has existed since the eighteenth century - as a sentimental drop with a lock of hair under rock crystal, later as a Victorian drop with a photographic miniature. The modern variant is the teardrop pendant with ashes behind a laser-cut threaded closure, or with ashes cast into an acrylic resin drop. New in content (ashes instead of hair), traditional in form.

Tear

The tear - as a shaped teardrop pendant, as a drop-shaped pearl or as a painted tear on a miniature portrait - is one of the most direct mourning symbols of all; it joins bodily reality (the drop actually wept) to symbolic condensation, and appears in jewellery from the Baroque memento mori to the modern teardrop ash pendant.

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