by: Nina Ross
August 27, 2024
Source: Reddit
Have you ever found a piece of what we call antique jewelry for the first time – maybe in your grandmother’s box or while playing in the garden? It could have been a brooch, a locket or even a ring and as you looked at it and held it in your hand you started to wonder the sort of life it had before it landed in your hands. The feeling of the hidden stories that lie in the darkness of the past is something that makes antique jewellery so enchanting. And there are few pieces that can give that feeling as much as Georgian mourning rings.
These were rings which were sometimes designed with black enamel work and made of gold, and they were not just mere ornaments. They were sentimental items; tokens used to hold the memory of a deceased family member or friend. For instance, picture a scenario where death was a regular occurrence in people’s lives; people got sick, they died, people died in wars, and women died during childbirth. Still, these rings gave people a chance to have a positive outlook on death and cherish the memory of the lost ones by wearing them around their fingers.
Mourning jewelry gained its popularity during the Georgian period which is between 1714-1830. The style was rather more dramatic and bold than one would expect for a collection of customs of a given period. Black was the most prevalent colour, which was used to express sorrow; the materials used were jet, black enamel, and sometimes onyx. But there was beauty in the darkness and here it was. These rings not only bore the sorrow; they were made of gold and pearls and other stones; frequently engraved with the name of the dead, the day of his or her death, and sometimes even a short saying of the dead one.
It is important to state that mourning rings served two purposes. On one hand, they were a method of showing the loss of one of their own family members or a close friend by wearing them. On the other hand, they were cherished possessions; a way of having a part of the dead with the living. Of course, in some cases, these rings were even pre-ordered and paid for in advance; by the deceased himself as a part of his or her last will. It was quite typical for wills of the 18th and the early 19th centuries to include the making of mourning rings which were to be presented to certain family members or friends.
Mourning rings in this period were a product of culture because they were used to depict the society’s perception towards death. During the Georgian era, people were religious hence, they believed in the existence of the afterlife thus death was not something to feared. Mourning jewelry hence had images of urns, willow trees and cherubs to console the bereaved and give them hope of the eternal life. These rings were not only the symbols of the loss of the soul, but also the way to keep the hope that the soul is eternal and exists even after the death.
This makes these rings rather touching, because they convey a particular narrative. Every inscription, every curve of the letters engraved on it, is the story of the owner of the jewelry. Some of the mourning rings even contained small tufts of hair of the deceased as it was believed that the hair was the permanent part of the body and therefore the essence of the deceased would remain for ever in the hair.
When you are holding a Georgian mourning ring in your hand, you can almost feel the history in your hand and not only the historical but people’s history and their feelings. The art that went into making it, the effort put into designing it and every symbol that is incorporated into it, changes it from just being a ring; it is a piece of a life that was cherished and lost.
These rings are now a collection of antiques that are sought after by collectors and historian of jewelry, for not only the beauty they possess but for the way they portray the whole generation’s concept of loss and bereavement. In today’s society where the memories are saved on the computer or any other digital devices, it is rather reassuring to have a tangible token of grief as a mourning ring. It is a physical entity to which one can point and say ‘this is what it was like’, or ‘this is who I am’.
Thus, the next time you come across an antique ring be it a family’s possession or a chance find, spare sometime to think of the stories it could tell. It may be a Georgian mourning ring – it has love, death, and the idea of keep memories alive after the person is no more.
#Guess #Vintage
