Locket

A locket is a pendant that opens to reveal a space used for storing a photograph or other small item such as a lock of hair. Lockets are usually given to loved ones on holidays such as Valentine's Day and occasions such as christenings, weddings and, most noticeably during the Victorian Age, funerals. Historically, they often opened to reveal a portrait miniature.

Lockets are generally worn on chains around the neck and often hold a photo of the person who gave the locket, or they could form part of a charm bracelet. They come in many shapes such as ovals, hearts, prisms and circles and are usually made of precious metals such as gold or silver befitting their status as decorative jewellery.

Lockets usually hold only one or two photographs, but some specially made lockets can hold up to eight. Some lockets have been fashioned as 'spinner' lockets, where the bail that attaches to the necklace chain is attached but not fixed to the locket itself which is free to spin. This was a common style in the Victorian Age. Around 1860 memento lockets started to replace mourning rings as the preferred style of mourning jewellery.

Keepsake lockets can also be made with a glass pane at the front so that what is inside can be seen without opening the locket. Such lockets are generally used for items like locks of hair which could fall out and become lost if the locket were repeatedly opened, whereas photograph lockets are generally enclosed on all sides and the photographs are secured by pieces of clear plastic.

Another kind of locket still made was in a filigree style with a small cushion in the centre to which a few drops of perfume should be added. Perfume lockets were popular in eras when personal hygiene was restricted and sweet smelling perfume was used to mask the odour of a person or their companions.

Very rare World War I- and World War II-era British and American military uniform locket buttons exist, containing miniature working compasses.

History

The medallion as a type of jewelry developed from the pictorial coin that was worn on a chain. Coins and medals with a high artistic standard were already being minted in ancient times. An early medal, for example, was produced under Antoninus Pius (138–161 AD) to commemorate the 900th anniversary of the founding of Rome. Purely effigy coins have been found since the Roman Imperial period, the so-called contorniates (Italian: contorno “edge”). These are a type of medal, usually the size of a sesterce, and have a rim. They have existed since the 3rd century AD. They depict profiles of emperors, poets and philosophers as well as allegories of gods and heroes.

In the Middle Ages, medallions initially had a purely religious significance. In the 13th century, they were widely worn as so-called phylacteries, reliquary containers designed to be hung on a pendant. At this time, both the cult of relics and goldsmithing were at their peak. These phylacteries were decorated using every technique available at the time and came in a variety of shapes and sizes.

Medallions with religious miniature paintings can be traced back to the 15th and 16th centuries. The front could also be three-dimensional, the back was often engraved. They served as private devotional objects. The medallion took on its earliest secular form in the 15th century, when it was used as a mirror case for the hand mirror carried in the pocket or on the belt. It consisted of a flat capsule, the front of which displayed all kinds of pictorial decoration, while the back had a shallow depression to hold the mirror, which at that time was made of polished metal or glass backed with foil. The mirror medallions worn on the belt had a hook or eyelet for attaching a chain. They were usually made of boxwood or ivory, less often of gold or silver. The main theme of their pictorial decoration was the glorification of courtly love. Castles, landscape motifs and trees were also common, as were biblical depictions with a secular character.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the importance of the medallion temporarily declined, but in the 19th century, it rose again. During the Biedermeier period, small, flat boxes in various shapes with playful details were very popular. These medallions were worn on short or long chains, with pictures or other religious objects placed inside the box. Religious significance took a back seat to private significance. Biedermeier medallions were made not only of precious metals, but also of ivory, boxwood, and other materials.

Due to industrialization and the associated emergence of jewelry factories, medallions became accessible to broad sections of the population from the end of the 19th century onwards. In the most important German jewelry centers of Pforzheim, Idar-Oberstein, and Schwäbisch Gmünd, medallions could be produced quickly and inexpensively in large quantities. During the Art Nouveau period, for example, the Pforzheim jewelry manufacturers Rodi & Wienenberger and Victor Mayer produced contemporary medallions in new shapes around 1905.

In the 20th century, the locket initially gained particular importance during the two World Wars, as a way to keep photographs and locks of hair of missing relatives close to one's heart. In the postwar period, lockets also played an important role as mourning jewelry, simple, round or oval, and enameled black. Lockets in this form remained common until the 1950s.

In the 1970s and 1980s, medallions made a fashionable comeback.

In popular culture

In The Half-Blood Prince, the 6th book in the Harry Potter series by British author J.K. Rowling, it is revealed that the Dark Lord Voldemort uses a locket that belonged to his ancestor Salazar Slyterin to hide within it a part (of 7) of his soul, thus making the fearsome wizard immortal. In the last book of the series (The Deathly Hallows), Ron Weasley destroys the locket, thus taking another step towards Voldemort's return to mortality.

Undertaker, the mysterious gravedigger in the manga Kuroshitsuji, is known for carrying several lockets on a silver chain around his waist. In the manga version of the story, one of the lockets is known to bear the inscription Claudia P. 1866; fans of the series speculate that she may be an ancestor of Ciel Phantomhive, the young protagonist of the story.

In the book "Shadows" by BJ Hernandez, the locket holds locks of Mr. Pedro Diaz's hair, which prevents the Shadows from approaching the family and thus keeps them safe.

Sourced from Wikipedia