Mary Lincoln's Jewelry

hello I'm James Cornelius we are here in the Blue Room of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum in Springfield Illinois where today we will talk about some of Mary Lincoln's jewelry that belongs in the collection here she had a good deal of jewelry as the lore goes although not too much is known specifically about many of the pieces but it's an interesting array and it shows something of her taste and her personality first of all a red coral necklace of fairly simple beads that fits closely to the throat with a matching set of earrings in the teardrop shape but also with a clipon feature to it this is um a little accent at the top that would go at the front of the clipon she also had a set of pierced earrings she did have pierced ears but of course you can wear clip on or pierced earrings with that feature these are from her morning period this is made of black onx with gold trim or highlights very attractive to my male eye it looks perhaps a little inspired by Egyptian design not sure about that in the historical fashion of jewelry but it seems plausible she was in Europe for the latter part of the 1870s and might well have caught the first whiff of of near Eastern and Egyptian fashion the earrings accompanying that as mentioned are pierced a fairly heavy item further on the red coral and we don't know whether Mary acquired these together or not but is a very different piece this again is a fairly close fitting piece of red coral necklace with heavy pendant of a carved cherub and two smaller cherubs Little Angels at the sides here speculation has been that these represent her deceased husband Abraham and her two deceased boys Eddie and Willie in the six-year period before Tad died but that is speculation it could it could simply be an attractive uh progression there of the smaller to the larger and that cherub would hang fairly close to her heart now to conclude with our Endangered Species part of Mary's possessions this is not a piece of jewelry and yet it could be considered an elegant coutant that defines her taste as well it is Ivory it is a letter opener it is carved to resemble a fish she had a great deal of Correspondence and would have had regular need for a letter opener let's talk about a girl's best friend we have two Diamond items in the collection here this ring with five diamonds set across it again perhaps representing the five men in her life Abraham and the four sons and then the prize of this collection Mary's diamond necklace with a great deal of finely cut I believe the term is emerald cut diamonds in it on a gold chain and on the back you can see through the heartshaped glass to the backs of those it could be worn either way we don't know how often Mary wore any of these conceivably some of them were gifts certainly this one was the family lore and this did come to us from the family is that Abraham gave it to her in their White House years and said to her I give you my heart but she has decided in some fashion not to wear any of these in the photographs of her she was usually not wearing much jewelry in photographs of her except with a few um notable exceptions to that in the early White House years when she was wearing new gowns for balls Mary Lincoln had lovely taste that was one of the things that attracted Abraham to her it is is one thing that made her the talk of Washington Mary had a good deal of jewelry she had a heightened sense of fashion and of aesthetic development she had a lovely figure good taste in Jewels she loved to wear Flowers in her hair as we see on this model here in the blue room she's wearing a a striking set of uh Pearl Jewels around her neck and her earrings and on her wrists she had a lovely figure she had developed tastes in clothing and jewelry in literature in music she was a very aesthetically heightened individual who unfortunately came to a very sad end thank you for being with us help us keep these items here two of them are from the taper collection the others are permanently in the presid residential Library museums collection and we hope you can come to Springfield soon and visit our Museum thank you

Channel: Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum

Views: 76,279

Keywords: Abraham Lincoln, Mary Lincoln, Jewelry

Id: SIEE59aZzKw

Length: 7min 7sec (427 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 01 2012