Featured One more share for the day (Honestly this creeps me out)

Discussion in 'Antique Discussion' started by Kasperscuriosities, Mar 19, 2016.

  1. Kasperscuriosities

    Kasperscuriosities Two hundred years too late.

    So I took this Mourning Hair Art in thinking it was kind of an unusual item for the auction. I kind of regret it and can't wait until it is sold and gone. Every since I moved it to the gallery I have had the heebie jeebies when I am there alone. It has the name on the back Francis Hagman and under the name it says 18. I am assuming that she was 18 when she died. It's not that I am afraid of a ghost or something but it's just the hair all twisted up like that makes my skin crawl. My husband who is a bit superstitious was none to happy with me when I picked it up. LOL! Anyways this is my last share today cause I do have to get back to work but thought you guys would appreciate it.

    3rdd-batch--58.jpg 3rdd-batch--59.jpg
     
  2. Messilane

    Messilane Well-Known Member

    They were a loving thing - nothing to creep you out. No different than keeping wedding rings or other stuff.
     
  3. Kasperscuriosities

    Kasperscuriosities Two hundred years too late.

    Oh I know it's just the hair. The way they twisted it and made flowers. It's cool but I am just not big on hair. :)
     
    KingofThings and scoutshouse like this.
  4. GaleriaGila

    GaleriaGila Hola, y'all!

    I feel ya, Robin. I do.

    Messi, I'm struggling to see it as you do. I'll get there.
     
  5. GaleriaGila

    GaleriaGila Hola, y'all!

    And if I haven't said it lately... Robin, you are so brave and intrepid (okay, used the thesaurus for that one!) and amazing. I'm proud to know ya!
     
  6. verybrad

    verybrad Well-Known Member

    Once you get the auction result on this, you will probably be glad to have taken it.
     
  7. TheOLdGuy

    TheOLdGuy Well-Known Member

    Best of luck with Brad's opinion.

    Though I agree with the vibes you feel ESPECIALLY if you DIDN'T misspell FrancIs.
     
  8. DragonflyWink

    DragonflyWink Well-Known Member

    Personally, don't find them creepy at all, no more so than placing a lock of hair in a baby book or a locket. It's a very nice piece, most likely finished by Miss Hagman when she was 18, rather than commemorating her death (how many different colors of hair would one person have?). Though some certainly were, not all hair-work items were mourning pieces, despite the widespread assumptions that they were, it simply wasn't the case. A piece like this would have been made over time from hair gathered from family and friends, a sentimental display of one's creative talents. There were commercial companies, as well as entrepreneurial individuals, offering classes, selling supplies (including hanks of hair), premade items were sold at retail, and custom pieces could be made, using the hair of a loved one if desired.

    ~Cheryl
     
    Last edited: Mar 20, 2016
  9. scoutshouse

    scoutshouse Well-Known Member

    and hair receivers sat on many a vanity. :) Just for fun, I looked up Japanese hair receivers and came up with this... SATSUMA!

    Screen Shot 2016-03-19 at 6.49.26 PM.png Screen Shot 2016-03-19 at 6.50.05 PM.png


    I have my grandmother's switch, from when she bobbed her hair in 1915, age 16. She was called Honey because of the color of her hair, and we were a match.

    My sister used it as a "Ratt" to bump up her her beehives in the sixties - she was blonde and also used it as a contrasting element - pretty high concept! She left it behind when she moved out, and I've had it ever since.

    I found a couple of links debating exactly WHAT hair receivers were used for:

    Myth # 94: Hair receivers were dressing table accessories meant for gathering hair with which to make hair art
    and

    Hair Receivers, Secret Beauty Aids of the Past


    (One other obscure hair term I remember is "guiche," (sp) which is what hairdressers called a spit or kiss curl in the 50s and 60s)
     
    Last edited: Mar 19, 2016
  10. komokwa

    komokwa The Truth is out there...!

    I keep my ponytail on the wall right next to me here......
    Just how weird is that ??
    ( more of a rats tail, but I never braided it..)
     
  11. scoutshouse

    scoutshouse Well-Known Member

    Komokwa, I'm not sure if that's TME, or MEI! lol - that IS weird, but not a deal-breaker!

    ...may I ask, just how long has your hank of hair been hanging on the wall? and are there heirs you plan to bequeath?
     
  12. johnnycb09

    johnnycb09 Well-Known Member

    Ive never liked hair anything ! Id find it creepy too .
     
  13. komokwa

    komokwa The Truth is out there...!

    At least 10 years.....maybe a couple more.
    Time flies....
    & there's no heir apparent ....so...hair today, gone tomorrow !

    Maybe I'll fashion a locket....& lock it in there.
     
  14. Shangas

    Shangas Underage Antiques Collector and Historian

    Last time I checked, "Francis" was a guy's name.

    "FrancEs" is a girl's name.

    I have a fascination with Victorian mourning paraphernalia. I don't find it that creepy, more just really interesting.
     
  15. Bev aka thelmasstuff

    Bev aka thelmasstuff Colored pencil artist extraordinaire ;)

    My mother used to talk about her older sister (b. 1898) who had hair to below her waist but got awful headaches and finally cut it into a flapper bob, we'd call it a "pixie" in the 60s. Never thought anything of it. Her daughter, who was my much older first cousin, was born in 1919. When she passed, I got her stuff. I opened one of those antique cookie tin boxes expecting to find sewing supplies. It was Aunt Willa's hair! It's put away. I don't know what to do with it. It's quite beautiful. My mother called the color chestnut and it's still silky and shiny. But, yes, a little creepy.
     
  16. Shangas

    Shangas Underage Antiques Collector and Historian

    I think we have to remember the culture of the time.

    Death was ever-present in the 19th century, in a FAR greater and more noticeable way than it is today.

    These days, someone drops dead and we really don't think anything of it.

    But back in the 1800s, people died with alarming regularity. Men died of consumption and yellow fever, syphilis and typhus. Women died of childbirth or any other number of illnesses. Children died every day from everything from starvation to abuse to neglect to polio, smallpox, influenza, measles...the list went on and on and on.

    With death EVERYWHERE (this is a time when everyone you knew would know at least one person close to them who died), to ignore death would've been seen as hideously rude and uncouth.

    Remember that this is a time when great pandemics were killing thousands of people every day. Cholera, typhus, typhoid fever. So recognising the impermanence of life was a BIG thing for the Victorians. They all knew that any one of them could be next. Memento Mori, as they say.

    Because of this ever-present fear of death, there was a MASSIVE culture over mourning accessories. Black clothing, black jewelry, black curtains, black furniture, black stationery for your desk...London even created the Necropolis Railway to ferry the dead out of London.

    Hair keepsakes in the form of plaited or woven hair jewelry or framed locks or even pocketwatch chains or bracelets or necklaces made out of the deceased's hair, were very very common. Most people couldn't afford photographs. And paintings were expensive. If you wanted something cheap and long-lasting to remember your dearly deceased husband/wife/son/daughter/grandmother...hair was about the only thing that survived.

    Some people might find it grisly (I personally do not), but back then it was extremely common. Equally common was post-mortem photography (which is still practiced today, BTW). For those who COULD afford photography, they would pose the corpse, sometimes with living relatives and photograph it for posterity. Mourning portraits or mourning photography was a big thing in the Victorian age.

    Before we judge something as being 'creepy' or 'disgusting' or 'weird' or whatever, we need to remember just what was going on when these things were being created. Thousands, millions were dying every day during this period, and if you were a young mother who just buried three of five children and your husband - you would want something to remember them by that was a bit more personal than just the clothes hanging in the cupboard, or the toys, or tools or furniture - which you would probably sell, anyway, because you needed the bloody money. Nobody wanted some dead guy's hair, so it was perfectly acceptable to keep a lock as a memento.
     
  17. antidiem

    antidiem Well-Known Member

    It's really beautiful. I don't think this is necessarily "mourning art" but rather it is an intricate piece that Frances made when she was only 18 years old.
     
  18. antidiem

    antidiem Well-Known Member

    Thanks for the links, Scouts. I didn't know about pincushions, but I am certain hair receivers were not meant to collect hair to use for this sort of hair art. I use one and spread my excess onto my berry bushes to keep the deer and bunnies away in early spring so they won't eat the tender new shoots before they flower.
     
  19. antidiem

    antidiem Well-Known Member

    Wondering if Brad would call the frame, "tramp art"?
    :cat:
     
  20. antidiem

    antidiem Well-Known Member

    Thanks for showing this, Kaspers.
     
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