ca. 1870’s, [Gold locket featuring a albumen portrait of Ulysses S. Grant] Delicately hing

ca. 1870’s, [Gold locket featuring a albumen portrait of Ulysses S. Grant] Delicately hinged oval door with fine engraving opens to reveal a small albumen portrait of General Grant in uniform under beveled flat glass. The oval doubles as an insert that can be pulled out, concealing a clipping of hair in the hollow stamped surround decorated in a flower & foliated motif. The weightless piece conveys a distinctly personal sentiment feeling like a “family heirloom” but lacks provenance and is constructed more like a commercial whimsy, probably related to the public’s adulation of US Grant following the war. The jewelry would appear to date to the 1870s latest, too early to be a Grant mourning piece.via Cowan’s Auctions -- source link

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