Victorian Double Sided Palette-Worked Hair Mourning Necklace

Now all but forgotten, the art of wearing mourning jewelry was once a common practice for hundreds of years. Popular in the time before photography, mourning jewelry was created to serve as a keepsake to remember a lost loved one. 

Gaining in popularity during the Civil War, hair work was an affordable and common at-home drawing room past time, much like knitting. Patterns and templates were widely available in newspapers, fashion magazines and periodicals. Many young women earned a living making hair jewelry at home.

For those less skilled or crafty, hair jewelry also could be purchased through catalogs or from jewelry stores. All one had to do was decide which piece they would like to have created and then send off a lock of hair to have it transformed into the piece of their dreams. 

Traditionally, there were two different types of hair work techniques: table-worked hair and palette-worked hair. 

Table-worked hair involved the use of a small, flat braiding table (a top hat or bandbox would suffice in a pinch) with a small finger-sized hole cut into the middle and small leaded weights. Hair was then plaited and woven into a tube-like shape using a number of intricate patterns and knots. From there, these woven tubes of hair would be made into jewelry or they could

Palette-worked hair was a bit more challenging. This technique utilized an artist's palette, a paintbrush and a glue wash to create patterns and pictures with hair. The most common form of palette work is the hair curl and the plait. More advanced and ambitious designs included wreaths, flowers and bouquets.

This stunning 10k gold miniature work of art features two wonderful examples of palette-worked hair. On one side, we have a simple plait of brunette hair. On the other, a more complex cut-and-paste monogram design of the initials J. I.  -- set against an iridescent mother-of-pearl background.

Pendant comes on a new gold-filled chain.