Accession #: ICI 22061
Title: Victorian-era Mourning Pins
Discussion: Matchbox-sized case of black-tipped mourning pins made in Germany for the American and English markets sometime during the nineteenth or early twentieth century. These pins were used to attach veils during periods of mourning. They are silent survivors of the Victorian era’s obsessive attention to detail and to their embrace of death culture. The pins are also a wonderful example of the ICI’s oft-cited maxim: ‘history is what survives history.’
