Memento Mori

Memento mori is a Latin phrase meaning ‘remember you must die’. Memento Mori are objects to remember the death of a loved one, this could include hair worn in a locket, death masks, paintings, photography and tomb stones.

In 1839 photography was becoming very popular, this brought the rise of photographing the dead. Victorian ‘spirit’ photography focused on the mourner then has a picture of the dead person put in it to look creepy.

Jewellery was the most important element, hair may have been cut from the dead and then made into something and added to the jewellery. Victorians were not allowed to cry but could use these different objects to mourn the death of a loved one. They were said to be very suspicious and even buried the dead with bells in case they weren’t actually dead so they could ring it and be saved, because of this suspicion they also increased the time they buried someone to two weeks. Objects designed to remind the owner of the death of a loved one took several forms, locks of hair cut from the dead were arranged and worn in lockets, death masks were created and the images and symbols of death cropped up in all sorts of everyday paintings and sculptures. Photographs of dead relatives became an increasingly popular feature of family albums, often in a lifelike pose with a rosy colouring and even open eyes painted over eyelids.

After death relatives and friends of the deceased would go into mourning, taken up by Queen Victoria after the death of her husband Albert. Mourning dress was made up of whole outfits to inform people of your state of grief, with fabrics and colours changing over time to mark how long it had been since the death of the loved one. For the death of a close relative, mourning dress would be worn in for up to two and a half years. This meant that with high mortality rates, mourning dress would often be worn for much of people’s lives.