What is a Chatelaine? Well its a type of jewelry that was worn by women in the Victorian era. They were useful little trinkets that also doubled as jewelry. They could be almost anything, a nail file, small notebook, pencil, match case, scissors, needle case, anything that would be useful to a lady of that time. They would look something like this
They would be worn at the waste or at the neck. While I was looking for a picture I came across this cartoon from Punch magazine 1849,
Which makes me think where they really all that helpful? Well, probably not as much as they could have been, but they also had to be pretty and lite so that they could double as jewelry. So far as fulfilling their purpose as being useful and pretty (which is a very hard thing to put in to one object, completely) they do rather well.
1 comment:
Hi, I'm Imogen and I like Victorian things too. I came across your blog while searching for Catholic teenagers' blogs and liked it immediately. I hope we can be blogging friends. Please come and see my blog at: http://theserendipitysisters.blogspot.com/
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