Why was hair so popular?

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, hair was the only available material of the body that was durable, easy to obtain and workable. A lock could be cut during a person's lifetime and sent to a workshop; the finished piece bound the absent or deceased person to the wearer through their own substance. In modern memorial jewellery, hair has largely been displaced by the fingerprint as the carrier of personal reference.

Which techniques are distinguished?

Four principal forms. A lock beneath rock crystal - the simplest and most common variant, a small strand of hair in a hollow setting. Plaiting - plaited bands of hair set into ring hoops, bangles or chain links. Weaving - hair is worked on a small weaving stand into little tablets that serve as the ground of a pendant. Sepia painting - cut hair is mixed with ink and used as a pigment for miniatures (see the separate entry).

How did the workshops operate?

Predominantly by post. The customer sent in a strand of hair together with a workshop sketch, and the workshop returned the finished piece. Well-known workshops - Forrer in Paris or Hartmann in Berlin, for instance - kept pattern catalogues with hundreds of designs. The average turnaround time was between four and twelve weeks.

Can hairwork still be restored today?

Locks beneath rock crystal: yes, by opening and resetting. Plaitings: possible where damage is minor and the remaining material has stayed elastic. Sepia miniatures: practically impossible to restore, because the inks are light-sensitive and the carrier layers brittle. Specialist restorers are found above all in the English-speaking world.

Hairwork

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.

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