An entire industry in 18th and 19th century France engaged many workers in the elegant arrangement of locks of hair - creating mementos given in friendship, and in celebrating multiple generations of a family, or in mourning. Small snippets of a variety of colors are usually a memento of an extended family - not always in mourning but sometimes - perhaps several lost to a single epidemic as happened back then. Some, like this one, arrange a large amount of a person's hair, or even sometimes a full long braid (that one celebrated a daughter's shorn locks as she became a novitiate in a convent) - you begin to have a sense of each type.
Very good to excellent condition for age and type, c.1887 also noted in hair. No gray in the brunette locks. So many families lost a child, spouse or young family member. The size is small for these. Nicely preserved, the outer frame is 75" x 3" oval, and the 3-D hair arrangement is nicely preserved beneath the deep convex 'bombe" cover glass. Sealed from the back.
