Artwork Details
- Title
- Mourning Pin
- Artist
- Unidentified
- Date
- 1790s
- Location
- Not on view
- Dimensions
- image (oval): 2 11⁄16 x 2 1⁄4 in. (6.8 x 5.7 cm)
- Credit Line
- Bequest of Mary Elizabeth Spencer
- Mediums
- Mediums Description
- watercolor, mother of pearl, and metal on ivory
- Keywords
- Landscape
- State of being — emotion — sorrow
- Figure female — full length
- Monument — tomb
- Primitive — mourning
- Primitive — mourning
- Religion — angel
- Object Number
- 1999.27.79
Artwork Description
Miniature paintings memorializing a friend or family member grew popular in the nineteenth century when the death of Prince Albert sent Queen Victoria into deep mourning. A name and death date on a locket, pin, or ring marked the passing of a loved one, and artists sometimes mixed a lock of the deceased person’s hair in with the pigment. The paintings often showed the bereaved person next to a tomb or cinerary urn, as in Mourning Locket for A. R. and Mourning Ring, and sometimes included symbols of grieving such as a dove or weeping willow.