Brooch

Object Type
This brooch features two Celtic crosses and is an example of Irish bog oak jewellery, one of the many kinds of black jewellery popular at this date. Black jewellery met the need to observe mourning but also became fashionable in its own right.

Materials & Making
Bog oak is a generic term for oak, fir, pine and yew turned black with age and by long burial in peat bogs. In 1852 Joseph Johnson obtained a patent for moulding bog-oak under pressure in heated steel dies, a process that enabled minute decoration of the kind seen on this brooch to be applied economically. In the 1860s he had a turnover of goods worth œ4,000-5,000 a year.

Subjects Depicted
Popular subjects for bog oak jewellery included Irish harps, shamrocks, and, as in this example, Celtic crosses - an Irish expression of the widespread interest in jewellery inspired by the past.

Time
There was another angle to appreciation of Irish work: an awareness of the suffering in Ireland caused by the potato famine of the 1840s. In 1856 the Art Journal recommended the wares of one retailer, which it considered of limited artistic success, because their sale 'is very serviceable to poor workmen and workwomen...Every purchaser is, therefore, to some extent a benefactor to Ireland...'