20 Secret Messages Hidden In Victorian Jewelry

In 1785, Prince George (the future King George IV of the UK) sent Maria Fitzherbert, a Catholic widow whom he loved but couldn’t lawfully wed without the consent of Parliament, this small watercolor on ivory, depicting just one eye and encased in some kind of wearable item that would not give away whose eye it was. This small portrait is the product of their affair. This style of “lover’s eye” jewelry is usually attributed to the pair, and it spread throughout the British aristocracy. They were indeed married secretly later that year, though the marriage was never recognized by the crown.

Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, gave her a gold ring in 1839 after she proposed to him, as royal protocol required, shaped like a serpent biting its own tail, its head set with an emerald, Victoria’s birthstone. The serpent swallowing its own tail, called the Ouroboros, had been used as a symbol of eternity for a long time. She wore the ring the next year when they got married, and the ring sparked a national trend for snake-shaped jewelry. It was a way of saying one thing: “this love has no end.”

From late 18th-century France through to Victorian Britain, jewelers created rings whose gemstones, named in order, formed a hidden message when their first letters were combined. A ring featuring a ruby, an emerald, a garnet, an amethyst, a ruby, and a diamond was called a “REGARD” ring, a polite enough sentiment that you could show your gift to someone in public. More expensive versions featured DEAREST, diamonds, emeralds, amethysts, rubies, emeralds again, sapphires, and topazes, with those additional emeralds and an extra sapphire suggesting a deeper level of devotion.

Victorian jewelry engraved with “Mizpah” took its name from Genesis 31:49, where the biblical patriarch Jacob and his father-in-law Laban set up a boundary stone after a bitter dispute, swearing an oath: “The Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another.” Victorians reinterpreted that boundary pact as a prayer of devotion, and this jewelry would have been especially popular during periods of extended separation due to war or travel. It would have served as a token of enduring loyalty, a vow made in secret but still felt as powerfully as a wedding band.

In public, a Fede Gimmel ring appeared to be two clasped hands, though it was actually a pair of rings joined together. “Fede” means “trust” in Italian, and “gimmel” is derived from the Latin word for twin. The outside of both rings featured the hands motif. The rings were constructed with several bands connected together on a central pivot pin. When swung open, they revealed an inner band with a tiny heart on the inside, meant to be seen only by the wearer or those who knew about it.

In Victorian times, a man would give a bracelet made of gold or silver, equipped with a tiny functioning padlock and key, as a way of saying “my heart is locked to all others.” He kept the key to himself, frequently on his own watch chain, and thus he alone could open it once more. A simple pledge became a physical one that everyone could carry.

In Victorian times, even a lock of hair was considered a tangible memento of the individual. This explains why jewelers designed locks on the back of rings, glass panels that slid into place, or false settings beneath gemstones to conceal a lock of hair. While people typically think of such pieces as mourning jewelry, living lovers also gave them away frequently.

Coded jewelry messages didn’t always have to cost a fortune. An ADORE design comprised five relatively inexpensive gems, amethyst, diamond, opal, ruby and emerald, that expressed love directly but removed the danger of having a written love note fall into the wrong hands. The word LOVE was spelled with lapis lazuli, opal, vermeil, and emerald. Vermeil was a 19th-century term for orange-red hessonite garnet, not the act of gilding. The word AMOUR in French was spelled using amethyst, malachite, opal, ultramarine, and ruby.

Pansy jewelry relied on a clever French pun (since “pensée” means “thought”) to give the wearer of an enameled pansy brooch a way to whisper, “pensée à moi,” think of me, you’re on my mind. To any passerby, the brooch was just a pretty little flower. But only those in the know would realize what it really said.

In some cases, a Victorian locket featured a hidden clasp or sliding bezel which would open out into up to six accordion-like gold frames. This let someone wear a seemingly innocent picture on the outside, such as a parent or child, but reveal a secret lover or departed loved one when they activated the mechanism. A single photo locket may well have contained multiple private images.

Posy rings were gold bands engraved with a brief vow or verse in rhyme. But instead of having the verse displayed on the outside of the band, where it could be seen by anyone, posy rings had their inscription on the inside of the band, where it would rub against the finger wearing it. Posy rings thus concealed their message from the world, a secret worn close against the skin.

After Prince Albert’s death in 1861, his wife, Queen Victoria, entered lifelong mourning, and upper-class society copied her by wearing dark clothes. The dress code required widows to wear Whitby jet or black enamel jewelry, not the fake black glass or vulcanite jewelry that was also available for sale. Many of the lockets were designed with an inside compartment that contained a lock of hair, or perhaps even a very small photograph of the loved one.

Jewelers placed tiny turquoise stones around a larger central stone of either ruby, pearl, or diamond. Together they created the shape of a forget-me-not flower, with the flower’s English name serving as its message too: do not forget me when we are separated. It was a favorite gift for lovers separated by distance, travel, or military service, a complete promise of fidelity made up of a few stones.

The raised letters AEI came from the Greek word aei, or “forever.” Victorians interpreted the letters as standing for Amity, Eternity, and Infinity, and using letters of the ancient Greek alphabet was considered refined and educated. The letters weren’t personal monograms; they represented a common sentiment. So when two strangers wearing AEI pieces crossed paths, they were quietly saying the exact same thing.

Since swallows mate for life and reliably return to their old nests, a brooch depicting a bird in flight was a reassuring token: Safe Return. In fact, jewelers at times paired the swallow with the forget-me-not flower, with the swallow clutching the delicate flower in its beak. The combination of the two symbols meant: I am thinking of you until I return safely to your side.

When worn, a vinaigrette ring’s hinged gem would open up, revealing a small perforated gold grate resting above a bit of sponge soaked with aromatic vinegar or perfume oil. This could be discreetly lifted to the nose, allowing the wearer to escape the stench of 19th-century city streets for a few breaths without anyone realizing what was going on.

The ever-clinging nature of ivy rendered it a natural choice as a representation of constancy. Jewelers carved ivy leaves onto plain lockets and bangles bearing a recognizable Victorian motto, “I cling to thee.” The plant did the explaining on its own, so a modest trinket could communicate something enduring without the need for an intricate backstory.

Victorian jewelers combined a crescent moon, which represented womanhood and one’s entry into marriage, with a solitary star to convey the message, “You are my guiding star through every phase of life.” This combination tied the wearer’s new status to a guiding presence, rather than functioning as just a simple symbol of love.

The Claddagh, a ring with two hands holding a heart topped by a crown, was a secret language of its own. Worn on the right hand with the heart facing outwards, the wearer was single. With the heart facing inwards, they were spoken for. Worn on the left hand, with the heart facing inwards, they were engaged or married. You could tell if someone was available without ever having to ask.

In the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, naval officers and their sweethearts sported enameled bar pins that featured flags from the International Code of Signals, the standard flag system used by ships for communication. By wearing the appropriate flags in the correct order, you could spell out a private word such as LOVE, or a code made up of a string of letters. The pin might look like nothing more than a professional maritime accessory, but to those who knew the code, it conveyed a private message.

This content was created with the help of AI.