jewelry collection

In the Memory of CP OE

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: I am devoting today to an article of jewelry I purchased several months ago, but have only just started wearing. When I purchased it I was rarely leaving the house except to run in the mornings so there weren’t many opportunities. However, it also seems so fragile (and special) that it took me awhile to get my head around wearing it even now that I find myself putting jewelry on again more frequently.

It was sold to me by a very thoughtful purveyor of jewelry on Instagram, @marsh.and.meadow. (Heather Hagans lives in the Midwest with her daughter Opal who appears, even at a young age, to have inherited her mother’s excellent eye as they travel the US trolling for items.) I began buying photographs from her on another account, but quickly morphed to jewelry as well. I have mentioned her in a prior jewelry post which can be found here. (A very wonderful Easter Bunny pin was one item featured, shown below, which I must dig out to sport over the next few weeks!)

Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

This type of memorial jewelry took hold in the 1800’s and exploded into popularity toward the end of the century. Queen Victoria honored the memory of her beloved husband Phillip by wearing mourning jewelry after his death in 1861 which helped to entrench the trend further. It gets very elaborate and decorative, but to the extent I am interested in it I like the most personal pieces.

I own a few other pieces of Victorian mourning jewelry. Most notably I have a larger gold brooch given to me by a close family friend. Our family histories entwine over several generations and somehow it feels appropriately like family to own and wear that piece, which does sport a superlative decorative bit of braided hair within.

I have also acquired two memorial rings (one with my initials!) as well that just sort of crossed my path, which maybe I will consider further in a future post. It isn’t something I actively collect, but these objects were so lovingly constructed I suppose I feel it honors the memories they hold for them to continue to be worn.

Front of pendant. The chain shown was made by a contemporary jeweler, Muriel Chastanet Jewelers in LA. Both Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

I purchased this item because it was especially interesting and for something that isn’t even two inches long it packs a lot of history. On one side of the piece is the inscription, In the MO RP OE. I believe it is an abbreviation for, In the memory of RP OE, so probably Rest in Peace OE? OE could be another Latin abbreviation, but I cannot find reference to it. (OB for example would mean died as a bachelor according to one article I read which also said that some of these references are hard to trace.)

This side has a tiny window revealing a small snippet of hair. It is a black enamel paint on gold, the sides are crimped, as is the decoration around the window. It has a bezel for it to be a pendant and I consider this the front of the piece and the direction outward that I display.

The back, or what I think of as the back, is more unusual and very touching. Etched into the gold in tiny script it states, WBB, Jr. returned home April 1 and then below another window, this time tiny hair is tightly braided decoratively, it reads Obt April 5th…1842.AE 23 yrs. 2. mos. WBB returned home (from where we wonder) and died four days later in 1842. Died from illness? Wounds? Accident? For me it is also the notation of the two months after 23 years that is notable – each day and moment was precious and noted.

Verso of pendant. Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

The object has an outer hinge, but the tiny window for the braided hair also has a hinge so small you don’t see it at first. It is beautifully constructed and I can only imagine how the act of engaging someone to make this, designing it, and then wearing it must have been for the owner. I hope the act gave her some solace as did wearing it hopefully.

Frankly I am somewhat puzzled by my desire to own this piece, although it is undeniably beautiful it is sad. There was just something so poignant about it and how lovingly constructed and designed it is however that it reached out to me. I think for me these pieces are a reminder not only about honoring those who are gone and remembering them, but to remember to embrace the moment of today as well. Meanwhile I am the willing steward of them for this period of time.

Curiosity

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today’s post is about a little object I have had in my mitts for several months now. It came to me via someone I follow and have purchased from on Instagram, Mia (aka http://@therubyfoxes) and I have written about other purchases from her here and here) lives in Britain and at least at this time the object hails from that part of the world. I share it today as pretty much as an object from my personal cabinet of curiosities and welcome all comers with any information or worthy speculation.

There were two slightly different ones and Mia kept the mate. I chose mine because it had a vaguely feline sensibility which I thought suited the Pictorama collection best, hers is a bit more squat and canine, shown below. (She was nice enough to send a photo this morning – I had snatched him via a story on her account so no way to save the photo.) It is more similar than I remember.

Mia’s sibling version of the object. Many thanks to her for popping this photo over to me this morning!

These appear to be made of bone and the base and ring looks to be silver. A careful look and the grooves where the collar goes around the neck convinces me that these were designed to be in these silver holders with a loop for a chain, ribbon or twine. He sports a tongue which sticks out between his carved teeth. There are deep holes on either side of his mouth and I am not sure where the maker was heading with that. The eyes are perched atop of the head with tiny pointy ears. I thought there was a vague suggestion of a tail, but when I rubbed it I realized it is just the natural coloration of the bone, no carved indentation.

Flip side, Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
Toothy! Pams-Pictorama.com collection.

The allover etched designs seem to be the same on both. Whatever their hoodoo it is consistent. I do hope they do not mind being separated, but I believe the US is glad to have one on its shores. I like to think of it having a partner over at Mia’s house in her own cabinet of wonders.

At first I was thinking maybe it was a chess or other game piece, until I realized that the apparatus for hanging and wearing it was integral to the design. Kim had a good suggestion this morning and reminded me of Billiken’s. (He purchased one for me made of mother of pearl which I wrote about here. The creation story is a good one indeed.) The god of things as they ought to be according to Wikipedia (a concept I paused a moment to contemplate), Billikens are good luck and I have christened these likewise. There is something sort of Billiken-esque about them.

Billiken, possibly amber, not in Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
Bone Billiken, not in Pams-Pictorama.com collection.

In fact a search of bone Billiken on Google turned up some credible relatives and I am reminded that Sandy over at http://@Curiositiesantique (or http://www.getcuriosities.com) came across a Billiken for sale I remembered as bone, but is amber she thought (see above), although there was a bracelet of small bone ones as well. However, these I found on Goggle are a bit closer to the mark of our mystery charms. (Also above.) Oddly, there are a number of Alaskan and Inuit carved figures that turn up under the search of Billiken bone images – not sure how all things Billiken can be true if there are early Inuit ones. Hmmm. More mysteries.

Lucky Billiken button. Pams-Pictorama.com collection.

Women’s World Cheer-up Club

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Here at Pictorama in recent years we’ve developed a particular soft spot for medals. My discovery of school medals lead to recent post (which can be found here) about these emblems of encouragement that seemed to proliferate as awards in schools in the early part of the 20th century. Improvement! Excellence! Who doesn’t want a daily reminder of these qualities cheering them on? Somehow I imagine accumulating numerous ones to wear on a lapel together although this has not yet manifested.

These school award are not the beribboned ones for athletic prowess or competition, but smaller and sweeter in my opinion. I have both a US example and one from Canada. I have to believe that equivalents existed in Europe. Somehow I like to imagine an earlier society where pins like these proliferated. This one is brass and appears a bit more mass produced than my school awards which would have been, I think, produced blank and then etched with cheering motivations subsequently.

Improvement, Pams-Pictorama.com collection.

I am reminded of those pins by this odd kissing cousin of an item I purchased a few months back from a British jewelry dealer (I have written about purchases from @Wassail_antiques frequently before, a recent post can be found here – hey Rachel!) and while making another purchase I decided that I would acquire this pin from her shop too. I had been eyeing it and in the end I would be disappointed to see it go to someone else. It seems to belong here with me.

Australian. 2 tons of jam made for the troops!

I did think it would be easier to find information about the Women’s Cheer-up Club than it has turned out to be. My limited research skills finally confirmed what I more or less thought I would discover, which is that the Cheer-ups were British societies in WWI. It seems to be an umbrella term for a loosely defined group of organizations which provided comfort and entertainment for troops during the war, raising money for these activities and also to create other resources for soldiers such as physiotherapy and the development of remedial skills. Drives were held for food, clothing and books for the troops as well and I believe some of these ultimately became veterans associations.

Australia. More than 125,000 pairs of socks made and sent to the troops.

I found one other of these pins while doing my research – for sale on Etsy – and it was the exact same one, although it seems there must have been variations on the theme I could find none. The references I ultimately found were largely archival period newspaper articles writing up the activities of a local branch of a Cheer-up Club. The references I found were not specifically to it as a women’s association.

Australian. Instruction book for knitting socks for the troops circa 1915.

Southern Australia had an active equivalent and I was able to find more about those than the British clubs, the establishment of them and the doings of the groups. The Australian Society Cheer-up also seeked to care for their troops abroad as well as at home and there are articles about Cheer-up Huts for Australian soldiers in Britain during the war.

In addition to, of course, urging people to cheer up these pins were a brand of patriotism during that time. I imagine that sporting such a pin might also show a soldier, perhaps on leave in an unfamiliar place, where he might find a hot meal and gathering spot in the area. Of course, it also encouraged people to cheer up during a dark time and now it sits on a shelf near my desk where it does that for me as needed too.

Bugged

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today is a first foray into Halloween post for this year – although clearly not all of my insect related bits and bobs are creepy crawlies, and of course there will be black cats to come. As it happens, today’s parade of insects started with butterflies. As Pictorama readers know, over the long pandemic siege I have entertained myself by following a series of jewelry dealers on Instagram. I mentioned these butterfly pins before as I considered a new passion for pins in general. (That post and a few others can be found here, here and here.)

While several dealers I buy from hail from the Midwest, a few are further afield and one of the first, and the one I probably still buy from most frequently, is a woman named Rachel whose handle and Etsy shop can be found @Wassail_Antiques and wassailantiques.com respectively. She lives in a thatched cottage (yes, really) in the English countryside, with husband and lovely pooch, and is a gifted professional photographer so her photos are extra alluring.

Rachel was nice enough to supply the photo above of the spider bracelet (above and below). For the rest you will have to put up with my ham handed efforts or snatches off IG posts. I do believe looking at her photos of the countryside help to assuage any unsatisfied travel lust I might feel.

Pams-Pictorama.com collection.

I saw the butterflies on her IG page first. Rachel wrote that they were likely made by prisoners of war or as trench art (during WWI, I believe) as trinkets for loved ones and a way to pass the time. I have found some passing references to this practice online, but am a bit surprised more hasn’t been written about it. These pins nagged at my brain for awhile and then I grabbed up these two last April when, perhaps like the soldiers in question, I was feeling my own desperate need for the outdoors, the natural world and perhaps a more orderly world than I was encountering. I bought two with the idea of wearing them together. I have not managed to execute that vision yet as my days of jacket lapels still seem to remain in the future days. (Although I have cleaned out the closets and jackets now wait at the ready!)

Pams-Pictorama.com collection. Photo by Heather Haggins @Marsh.and.Meadow.

The dragonfly on the other hand, is celluloid and of a more recent vintage. Another favorite dealer (@marsh.and.meadow and @marsh.and.meadow.overflow) was having a sale – I have written that these sales are always fast and furious and this was no exception, but I bought this little gem. This was before I purchased the World’s Fair bracelet from her – a recent post which can be found here – and I felt lucky to score this little fellow. Although he is plastic I really love him and I did manage to sport him on some sundresses this summer. I can imagine wearing all three together. These pins say spring and summer to me.

Pams-Pictorama.com collection. Photo courtesy Rachel Kremer, @ @kremersnowdon_studio and @Wassailantiques.com.

Heading into the season of the moment, Rachel revealed this lovely bracelet and I jumped on it. I have never seen anything like this bracelet and it has become an immediate favorite. (I am not alone – it had a moment in the sun in a piece in Tattler magazine before winging its way to me!) I have worn it to almost every one of my in-person appointments since it arrived. Although it is very seasonal for the moment I expect to continue wearing it beyond October 31.

After the purchase of the bracelet another spider found its way to me in the form of a necklace. (This one courtesy @witchyvintage.) I am having a bit of trouble with this one though, and although I like it and the chain, I must paw through my jewelry box for a chain that works better for it. (She also has vintage clothing and just put up a black velvet cape that seriously stopped me in my tracks – but I really am not leading a black velvet vintage cape life right now. Alas! For those with more interesting lives who wish to investigate her shop can also be found at witchyvintage.com.

Spider necklace I am still figuring out. Photo from @Witchyvintage.

I admit I continue a yen for them – Rachel has two lovely bug stickpins on her Etsy site I can barely control myself from purchasing. I am decidedly not fond of the insects I find in my home (the moths continue their prodigious march despite my best ongoing efforts, I am constantly undertaking their elimination, systematically and randomly), and am actually fairly squeamish in general about that aspect of the natural world so this trend intrigues me. Bees have long interested me with their diligence and organization and perhaps in a different world I might have kept hives, but in general I like my insects at arm’s length, or (I guess) made from beads, silver or even plastic.

Update: This went up on Instagram while I was writing about it and decided to give into impulse and buy it – and a pretty box for mom for Christmas! This lovely photo also courtesy of Rachel Kremer!

Maybe I relate to their chrysalis state, waiting to emerge from my own cocoon. Or maybe it is just a new yen for the natural world after a long time mostly at home. I am not sure, but I will also mention that I find myself purchasing items with stars, moons and other celestial motifs! (I am wearing favorite pj’s with stars on them gratis The Gap right now as I write this.) More on those to come.