Memento Mori

Hairwork mourning jewelry, or memento mori (remember death), first appears in the seventeenth century as the nobility sought to memorialize their dead. Though the primary purpose was to act as a memory of a loved one, the secondary function was to remind the wearer of his or her mortality. By the eighteenth century, memento mori were worn by almost everyone as they became public expressions of private mourning.

This memento mori has chopped hair mixed in the paint. It was most likely made to mourn the child who points to the flying dove, which represents the deceased’s soul. Despite the sad purpose of the pendant, it shows a loving family sitting in a bucolic landscape. The father holds a book as if interrupted in educating his distracted child. In art, books have long symbolized knowledge, and the half-open one here is a poignant suggestion of a life cut short.