I mean Valentine's Day is coming up, so

[breathedout]

Y'all I have to go to work, but: just discovered Georgian "eye minature" jewelry while poking around for fiction research, and needed to share the weirdness in case you were not aware:



Disembodied body parts sadly spying on you, SO ROMANTIC! I thought for SURE this would be a Victorian trend due to the extreme creepiness factor, but no, apparently it's earlier. Yikesy, guys.

Edit: Here's a fascinating Atlas Obscura article about these trinkets: apparently the fad caught on in England due to the future George IV exchanging them with his illegitimate mistress/bride, Maria Fitzherbert. And although the height of the trend was earlier, Victoria (predictably) did apparently commission some of these. Thanks chestnut_pod for the tip!

Comments

[workday_dreamer]

Um... do you know why?

[chestnut_pod]

Something to thank George IV and his illegitimate marriage for, apparently.

[donut_donut]

Yeah, it strikes me as something designed so others couldn't really tell who your beloved was...

[breathedout]

Now that you say this about the semi-anonymity of these pieces, I'm actually really surprised I haven't encountered this as a plot point in novels of the time. I wonder if an 18th century specialist like oulfis would immediately be like "Ah yes, the eye miniature, around which the plot of my favorite Maria Edgeworth novel revolves!"

[oulfis]

AH YES, THE EYE MINIATURE! It's actually under-utilized, really, for dramatic purposes -- people are more likely to have dramatic plot reveals around regular miniatures (kept concealed until they suddenly prove someone's identity, like in Mysteries of Udolpho) or around hair jewelry (visible but with the source of the hair misinterpreted, like in Sense & Sensibility). LOTS of fun mistaken identity around locks of hair. But there's SOME novel I read, maybe Emmeline??, in which somebody has an eye portrait of their uncle and this reveals that they are in fact of noble birth. He might have been not her uncle but in fact her "natural" father, and that's why the portrait was just an eye??

A quick search of Hanneke Grootenboer's monograph, "Treasuring the gaze: intimate vision in late eighteenth-century eye miniatures", didn't turn up ANY depictions of eye miniatures in novels other than a Dickens story from 1848 in which an old woman still having an eye miniature of her father is proof of how batty and behind the times she is.

[oulfis]

I think hair is more popular in novels than eye miniatures for the "secret and misinterpretable proof of love" for a number of reasons, actually -- 1, a lock of hair is cheaper and easier to get than a portrait; 2, hair involves no witness in the form of the artist (though having an artist or jeweller dramatically reveal the provenance of a miniature portrait has happened in at least one novel so maybe the witnesses make for good drama); 3, hair was more likely to be visible to outsiders, allowing for narratively satisfying confusion and speculation, whereas eye portraits would often have locket-style "covers" on them or be kept at home rather than worn, if you weren't George's extremely vain and public mistress.

[donut_donut]

thanks for all your comments on this post! v. interesting stuff.

[breathedout]

I'm so glad you showed up to comment!! I was thinking about messaging you but then the workday from hell swamped me. :-/

I am VERY disappointed in the novelists of the late 18th century for failing to take advantage of this RICH AND OBVIOUS plot device that was dropped in their lap by contemporary fashion. I mean, sure, your points are valid, but I feel like each & every negative could be turned into a positive with the proper narrative framing. In particular #3 "it's only visible to one's intimate circle," which I feel provides an excellent opportunity to drive the knife of almost-but-not-quite-enough-intimacy between two people deeper & ever deeper. What about a snooping inamorata who opens the locket & sees the eye, only to be tortured by internal speculation for the rest of the novel?? I MEAN. Do I have to do everything around here myself.

[starshipfox]

What about a snooping inamorata who opens the locket & sees the eye, only to be tortured by internal speculation for the rest of the novel?? I MEAN. Do I have to do everything around here myself. LMAO at these excellent and very valid points. Looking forward to yr 18th century novel!

[workday_dreamer]

Huh. I would have thought more along the lines of having a copy of your loved one's eye(??) to stare into. Didn't expect it to be related to politics...

[breathedout]

Nor did I! But now that I'm reading about it, I'm even more fascinated than before. Not less creeped out, but still: more fascinated.

[breathedout]

I didn't have time to research before I left for the day, but I'm now reading up & this is fascinating. Thanks for the tip!

[starshipfox]

Oh boy! I love them. I want ten.

[breathedout]

Good news for you: there are some modern takes on Etsy that are EVEN CREEPIER than the originals.

[starshipfox]

Oh, Etsy. It always provides for all my creepiest needs!

[sylvaine]

I am unutterably delighted!

[breathedout]

LOL! I feel like I need to somehow work "delighted" into the portmanteau "hilarified" in order to truly express my feelings about these.

[teaforlupin]

OMG I too was going to say Victorian for sure... I'm going to read that article because I love me some creepy weirdness! And those are very creepy and very weird!!!!

[breathedout]

SO creepy and weird! What a find.

[recently_folded]

I agree that they are creepy and horrible, and that is exactly why I'm coming up with so many fanfic 'verses these would fit into quite terrorably.

[breathedout]

The narrative possibilities are LEGION, aren't they. My brain started cooking up all kinds of story ideas as soon as I realized that these were intended to semi-disguise the identity of the beloved. *Rubs hands together in glee*

[thatyourefuse]

I don't know about anyone else but I'm already thinking Chilling Adventures of Sabrina fic about it. (I don't actually find them viscerally creepy, either. At least not the ones shown. The portrait style doesn't hit my specific uncanny valley issues, and the teardrop-shaped one at the top I think is really lovely.)

[breathedout]

The creepiest ones to me are the ones where the (presumed) person is looking out of the side or corner of their eye, as if they were afraid, morally dubious, or were trying to conceal the desire to escape. I feel like the whole conceit of this trend doesn't take into account how expressive a single eye can be!

In other news, I haven't watched any Sabrina, either original or nouveau flavor. Though before I quit Tumblr the Michelle Gomez gifsets were certainly... intriguing.

[thatyourefuse]

I absolutely know what you mean, and in a weird way I think that's why I'm not averse to them; they're eerie as fuck, but I don't have the "YAAAAARGH GET IT AWAY FROM ME" reaction I frequently have to (for example) the kind of really bad civic portraiture that makes everyone look a little bit like an animatronic vinyl serial killer.

In the event you WANT to be bombarded with youtube clips and extensive commentary on every item of clothing they have put Miranda Otto in ever, say the word. Otherwise, I highly recommend anyway doing an image search for "Tati Gabrielle photoshoot," because some faces really have to be seen to be believed. (I also have a clip of Miranda Otto having a drunk solo dance party in some movie I've never heard of, because it made MY world a better place anyway.)

[achray]

Interesting! Oh, the possibilities for every single Regency AU.

[breathedout]

RIGHT??? Omg. The brain-wheels are turning.

[oulfis]

I feel like I've let you down, as a friend, by not telling you about these!!

Two years ago a purse company actually tried to REVIVE this trend, and I thought I told literally everyone I knew, lol. I took this photo walking past their storefront:



Trying to find more info, I also turned up a post they made on Facebook:



(I'm trying out DW's image hosting, I think you can click both of those to see them large?)

As a trend I kind of get it when it's the eye of someone you know, but it seems really ill-suited to contemporary tastes to digitally print a RANDOM eye onto mother-of-pearl and expect that to catch on! But I guess really these second-tier luxury brands are just trying to get attention, and then you'll go in and buy a regular purse.

[breathedout]

Oh. My god.

I mean actually now that I think about it I'm not sure whether I'm more creeped out by the idea of carrying around the disembodied spying eye of someone I know, or sporting the digitally-printed eye of a stranger on my semi-designer purse. Both are. Honestly not great.

Y I K E S

[dancing_crow]

I thought they were the hilarifying (truly terrific portmanteau) Barbie parts jewelry I've seen, but they are older and odder than that!! That is EXCELLENT, thank you!

[breathedout]

Ahahahaha yes much older! And uh, you're welcome I guess! Glad to share the creepy-ass wealth.

[tellitslant]

These are wonderful and terrifying, and (possibly because I got fed Bertie Botts jellybeans at the gym) I immediately thought what they'd be like in the moving-paintings of the Harry Potter-verse. D:

[breathedout]

Omg. They would blink (wink?), and I would run screaming.

(It's possible I wouldn't last long in the HP universe.)

[sarahthecoat]

those are... creeptastic... I am now relieved that there were none in the large inherited stash of jewelry that my sister and I had to go through after mom died.

[breathedout]

SUPER creepy. I mean I kind of want one. But what if there were MULTIPLE ones in an inherited stash of jewellery? *Shudder*

[pennypaperbrain]

Someone's gotta make a necklace of all those and claim they are slain enemies.

[breathedout]

They do. They really, really do.

[ruinsplume]

The one on the bottom right looks EXACTLY like it's the eye of the "Shoney's Big Boy" restaurant statue.