Beyond All Price: Victorian Hair Jewelry, Commemoration & Story-Telling

Abstract

When the Rothschild Foundation and National Trust commissioned the artist Jane Wildgoose to present an exhibition at Waddesdon Manor, the country mansion built for Ferdinand de Rothschild (1839–1898) containing his magnificent collection of eighteenth-century French decorative arts and European paintings, she focused not on the grandeur of the house or the luxury of its contents, but on a simple lock of hair and a tiny photograph of Ferdinand’s wife, Evelina (1839–1866). This essay gives an account of how these humble objects held the key to a deeply personal story relating to Ferdinand and Evelina. Focusing on the materiality of human hair, and the complex codes for mourning in the late Victorian period, Wildgoose unravels some of the meanings associated with nineteenth-century mourning jewelry, including examples selected from the Rothschild collections and the Royal Collection to accompany Evelina’s hair and photograph in her exhibition Beyond All Price. It also discusses her research trip to Leila’s Hair Museum in the USA, where she learnt techniques for making wreaths from human hair in order to be able to make new pieces of hairwork for the exhibition. The essay concludes with discussion about Wildgoose’s ongoing work with donated human hair, and her associated research into the historical circumstances that led to a “unique status” being ascribed to human remains in collections, in the UK government’s Guidance for the Care of Human Remains in Museums.