Hair bouquet with wood storage box
73.74
Creation Date
1885Description
Victorian hair art: Hair bouquet in an oval Shaker style bentwood box. The bouquet of flowers is made with hair held in loops with very thin spring-wound wire. This type of artwork, made with human hair, was part family tradition and part mourning ritual in the 1800s. These family keepsakes would typically be framed and hung on a wall in the home as a way to remember deceased relatives and friends. A note with the items say the box and hair art were hand made in 1885. These are from the Baillif family.
Women with long hair saved what naturally was brushed out daily in a hair receiver (a small round dresser-top box with a hole in the lid.) The strands of collected hair were straightened, put into small bunches of strands. These were wrapped around a dowel stick and held in place by crisscrossing thin wire over the hair loops. After sliding the dowel out, the wired hair loops could then be shaped into flower petals and leaves. Hairwork fell out of fashion when women began to cut their hair shorter in the early 1900s.