Pillar
History & culture — the stories jewellery carries
Vintage jewellery is a coded language. Mourning rings, love tokens and regional traditions each carry conventions that let contemporaries read a wearer's status, mood or grief at a glance. This pillar brings together the guides that decode those languages.
Mourning jewellery
From memento mori to Victorian mourning: jet, onyx, black enamel and hair work.
Love jewellery — fede, acrostic, sweetheart
Medieval fede rings to wartime sweetheart brooches: how love was worn.
Motifs — floral language and symbols
Forget-me-nots, ivy, hearts and hands — meaning behind the imagery.
Hair work in jewellery
Braided work, palettes and tresses as keepsakes for the loved and the lost.
Regional Dutch jewellery
Zeeuwse knop, Hindeloopen filigree, cap pins — regional identity in gold.
Dutch silver
Lion, Minerva and warranty stamps — the context of Dutch silver traditions.