‘Precious Relics’: Hair Jewellery and the Victorians
Florence Nightingale Museum
2 Lambeth Palace Rd.
Greater London
51.50017527729487
-0.11734859416494971
Evening Talk at the Florence Nightingale Museum
The zeal with which men adopted beards and whiskers in the 19th century is surely matched by the Victorians’ enthusiasm for wearing jewellery containing human hair. Everyone, it seems - from Queen Victoria herself to Florence Nightingale and the serving men of the Crimea - understood the ‘sacred worth’ of a lock of hair from the head of a loved one.
Drawing on material in the Florence Nightingale Museum and other public and private collections, artist Jane Wildgoose considers a wealth of intricately crafted watch-chains, lockets, necklaces, bracelets and rings containing human hair, and the ways in which these ‘precious relics’ spoke of ties of love, kinship, and loss during the Victorian era.
Admission price for all talks £8.00 (Members of the Florence Nightingale Museum FREE) and includes a glass of wine and a chance to view the museum. Doors will be open from 6pm, for a 6:30pm start.
This lecture is part of our season of events for 'The Age of the Beard,' an exhibition and series of events generously funded by the Wellcome Trust.