18th Century Memorial Locket with Skeleton, Lady and Plaited Hair; Victoria and Albert Museum, London

British made, late 18th century memorial locket depicting a skeleton and a lady; the skeleton is saying "I alone can heal" while taking from the woman a pierced heart. Engraved gold frame, ivory painted in watercolor, and plaited hair. From the amazing Victoria and Albert Museum.

Memorial jewellery, as the museum website explains:

"to honour the dead is one of the largest categories of 18th- century jewellery to survive. Many mourning jewels have inscriptions that record the name and dates of the dead person.

From 1760 there was a new vogue for memorial medallions or lockets. These became especially popular in Britain, though similar work was produced throughout Europe.

The lockets could be bought ready made, and the designs were standardised. Neo-classical motifs of funerary urns, plinths and obelisks joined the more traditional cherubs, angels and weeping willows. Hair was preserved as curls within the locket, or cut up and used to create designs."

 You can find out more by clicking here.