ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to explore the power of the mourning woman in antique dress as an expression of eighteenth-century British grief. The material culture of death had a rich history following the English Reformation, but the birth of the Industrial Revolution led to a consumer boom, creating an explosion in the commemorative market and placing the figure of the mourning woman on all things, large and small. Examples of her appear on mourning jewellery, gravestones, ceramics and ivory carvings and will be discussed. The dual purpose of these objects is considered, in which her pain was used to express sorrow and her antique appearance spoke of the education and social status of both the deceased and bereaved. This figure placed the identity of the owner in closer relation to the ancient past than the present by creating a strong association between the living and the dead in the ancient world and Enlightenment Britain.
