Georgian Era Gilt Portrait Miniature and Hair of Young Man Courting Pendant - Repousse Frame - Regency 1820s Hair Love Keepsake Jewelry

This listing is for the Antique Georgian / Regency Era Portrait Miniature and Lock of Hair Courting Love Pendant. Likely dates to the early 19th century, between 1800s and 1820s, during the regency period. The pendant has a highly detailed, hand painted watercolor portrait miniature of a young man in a full suit on one side and a lock of the young man's hair encased on the other side, both set behind a thick piece of glass or crystal. The portrait and hair are set inside of an ornamented gilded gold metal that is designed using the repousse practice of hand-hammering an ornamented design onto a piece of jewelry. The pendant is in excellent condition with minor tarnishing or fading on the gilded metal but still remains perfectly intact after over 200 years! Perfect historic artifact from the beautiful and romantic Regency period!

This piece was likely commissioned by the man in the portrait to give to the woman he was courting as a sign of devotion, which was a popular courting practice at the time. It is possible that this pendant was instead a piece of mourning jewelry, which was also a popular use of hair and portraiture jewelry during the 19th century, but mourning pieces commonly included more symbols of death and mourning, such as skeletons or black/darker coloring, which this piece does not include, meaning that it was more likely a piece of courting or love keepsake jewelry.

Human hair was incorporated into jewelry as a keepsake of loved ones, dead or alive, as early as the 17th century. The practice grew in popularity in the Georgian period, with miniature portrait pieces being commissioned to include a lock of a loved one's hair to remember them. Hair jewelry would be worn either as a keepsake of an alive loved one, such as a child, parent, or lover, or as a memento mori (remember death) to remember a loved one who had died. These pieces would either be made of pure gold, or the cheaper gilt gold option depending on the commissioner's wealth and status. Portrait miniatures included in these pieces throughout the Georgian period were hand painted in varying detail, most commonly using watercolor. Once photography was introduced to the public beginning in the 1840s, the majority portraits included in mourning or keepsake jewelry were taken using photographs. Keepsake or courting jewelry that included a lock of hair from a loved one is mentioned in the Regency era classic romance novel Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, with the quote, "I am sure they will be married soon, for he has got a lock of her hair." This practice of wearing keepsake jewelry was heavily influenced by the rise of the Romanticism movement in art and culture at the turn of the 19th century, which spanned well into the Victorian period. 

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Georgian Era Gilt Portrait Miniature and Hair of Young Man Courting Pendant - Repousse Frame - Regency 1820s Hair Love Keepsake Jewelry