Hair and gold brooch, tube of hair encased in gold with engraved flowers, hinged pin and hook on reverse.
brooches
pins (jewelry)
BROOCH
Original to Merwin House (Stockbridge, Mass.),
520
Unknown
Bequest of Vipont de R.D. Merwin
1966.2254
For more information on hair jewelry see Bell, C. Jeanenne, "Collector's Encyclopedia of Hairwork Jewelry," (1998); Bury, Shirley, "Jewellery, 1789-1910," v. 2 (1991): 680-698; Campbell, Mark, "The Art of Hair Work: Hair Braiding and Jewelry of Sentiment with Catalog of Hair Jewelry," Eds. Jules & Kaethe Kliot (facsimile of 1875 printing, 1996); Dawes, Ginny Reddington & Corinne Davidov, "Victorian Jewelry: Unexplored Treasures," (1991): 139-143; Fales, Martha Gandy, "Jewelry in America, 1600-1900," (1995): 98-107, 214-219.
Historic New England is committed to implementing reparative language description for existing collections and creating respectful and inclusive language description for new collections. If you encounter language in Historic England's Collections Access Portal that is harmful or offensive, or you find materials that would benefit from a content warning, please contact [email protected].