The Luckenbooth: Scotland’s Love Brooch

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/30/fashion/jewelry-scotland-heart-brooch-luckenbooth.html

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Heart brooches are as traditional in Scotland as kilt pins or clan badges, but few outside its borders know of their long cultural ties to the country. The designs date as far back as the 16th century, and are still created and worn today. Their evolution has developed from simple silver shapes to gem-studded luckenbooths — and recently, at least one brightly colored acrylic version.

The earliest brooches were small plain heart-shaped pins generally given by a man to his sweetheart as a betrothal gift or love token.

Often, they were engraved with the lovers’ initials or with biblical or romantic sayings. “Wrong not the heart whose joy thou art” proclaims a heart brooch from about 1700 that is part of the extensive collection at the National Museum of Scotland. “My heart you have and yours I crave” says another from the same period.

The brooches, usually made of silver, symbolized both love and protection because, when the couple had a child, the brooch would be pinned to its clothes to ward off witches. “Especially in the Highlands, Scots were superstitious,” said Kari Moodie, the curator of collections at the Inverness Museum and Art Gallery. “The brooch would help to make sure the baby wasn’t a changeling, swapped by fairies.”

The pin on an early brooch could be moved back and forth but there was no catch to secure its closure, so it had to be stuck through fabric to hold it in place, much like the way annular, or ring-shaped, brooches are used on men’s plaids.

Over time, heart brooches became larger, often featuring two hearts intertwined; in the mid-1700s, a crown appeared atop the heart or hearts.

In the public imagination, the intertwined hearts appeared to form the letter M so such that designs were often called Mary brooches, after Mary, Queen of Scots, who ruled Scotland from 1542 to 1567 and was beheaded in 1587 by her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I.

In this period, silversmiths (or, more generally, goldsmiths) used molds to make the hand-finished brooches, which became flatter in appearance and often were decorated by chasing or engraving.

In Inverness, where the Highland silver trade was centered, silversmiths developed their own distinctive design: The crown was stylized with a shape that looks a bit like two birds facing opposite directions; fleurs-de-lis decorated the sides of the heart, evoking Scotland’s close historical connection with France; and a chevron, or inverted V, crossed the heart’s center.

The decades of Scottish repression that followed the failed Jacobite Rising of 1745 were diminishing by 1822, when King George IV visited the country at the invitation of Sir Walter Scott, the novelist.

He was the first British monarch in almost 200 years to go to Scotland, and caused a public sensation by appearing in Highland dress in Edinburgh. “Everyone wanted Scottish jewellery,” wrote Shirley Bury in “Jewellery 1789-1910: The International Era,” noting that the passion for Scott’s romantic novels (“Waverly,” “Rob Roy”) and poems also put a strain on the trade’s production capabilities.

The fad only intensified after Queen Victoria ascended to the British throne in 1837. She and her husband, Prince Albert, first traveled north in 1842 and returned for additional visits before purchasing the Highland estate of Balmoral in 1852. Peter George Wilson, a successful Inverness silversmith, would be summoned to bring a tray of his work to show the queen at Balmoral or at Dunrobin Castle, where she visited the Sutherland family, Ms. Moodie said — and heart brooches were probably among the selection.

In the late 1800s, heart brooches made in Edinburgh began to be called luckenbooths, from the Gaelic word for the small stalls near St. Giles Cathedral on the Royal Mile, which led from Edinburgh Castle, the city’s fortress, to Holyrood Palace, the royal residence.

During the day, the booths were used by merchants and tradespeople to sell goods, and were locked at night to prevent theft. Silversmiths, whose trade guild was located nearby, were among those selling from the stalls and heart brooches would have been part of their merchandise.

“People claim that as soldiers marched down from the castle, heading off to war, they would buy their sweethearts a luckenbooth to keep until they returned,” said Martin Bosi, one of the proprietors of Royal Mile Curios in Edinburgh, which sells antique jewelry, including luckenbooths.

Although originally the name luckenbooth referred specifically to heart brooches from Edinburgh, it has become a generic term for the pins, which rankled some purists.

Until the 19th century, heart brooches were worn by ordinary people, as evidenced by their simple design and plain appearance. For example, they didn’t appear in early Scottish portraits, as a catalog for a 1991 major exhibition of Scottish jewelry at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery noted, because such paintings were commissioned by the wealthy.

But by the late 19th century, the brooches had transformed into elaborate decorative pins, often enameled or set with gemstones. Although beautiful, these Victorian-era brooches were “lacking the naïve charm of the older forms,” wrote G.R. Dalgleish, one of the catalog’s editors.

But less expensive versions of luckenbooths continued to be available as the Industrial Revolution made mass production possible.

Luckenbooths are often sold at auction in Scotland. Sometimes Lyon & Turnbull, the Edinburgh-based auction house, will have one to offer during its annual auction of Scottish silver, or at one of its five or six general silver and jewelry auctions throughout the year; Bonham’s also holds silver auctions in the Scottish capital.

“The good ones don’t turn up often, but there is a plethora from the Victorian period and later,” Colin Fraser, a silver consultant with R.L. Christie Works of Art in Edinburgh said. “We like to have them, but many of them are locked away in collections. They have a real international appeal because they are so iconically Scottish.”

In August, Lyon & Turnbull auctioned a pair of luckenbooths, each dating from 1760 to 1780; they sold as one lot for 325 pounds, or about $367, including the buyer’s premium. Mr. Fraser said the highest auction price he knows of was more than 12,000 pounds for a heart brooch bought by a museum, but the transaction was years ago.

Luckenbooths aren’t as popular today as they have been in the past, but they haven’t disappeared either.

Tourist shops throughout Scotland sell relatively inexpensive, mass-produced versions, and some fine jewelers work with silversmiths who can create new brooches using molds based on the older styles.

Alistir Wood Tait, owner of the jewelry business that bears his name, has a metal luckenbooth hanging above the doorway of his Edinburgh shop, where he sells antique pieces, including heart brooches. “Our future’s in the past,” said Mr. Tait, who wears his own luckenbooth as a kilt pin. “Young people want interesting old jewelry with character, style, uniqueness and a bit of history.”

Mr. Bosi, of Royal Mile Curios, said locals buy them as wedding gifts or hostess gifts when traveling abroad.

Ask a Scottish woman if she owns a luckenbooth, and don’t be surprised if her answer is yes. Amelia Leslie of Edinburgh proudly wears one that her husband John gave her when they were dating, more than 25 years ago. “He gave it to me as a love token not long after we met,” she said. Ms. Leslie usually wears it on a turtleneck, so it stands out, or with a tartan dress.

Ms. Moodie from the Inverness museum has a luckenbooth that belonged to her grandmother; she said it may have been an anniversary present and she wears it, as a pendant, on special occasions that would have pleased her grandmother.

For a modern twist, Lyndsay McGill, a curator of Scottish history at the National Museum of Scotland, owns a bright green luckenbooth made of acrylic. She said she discovered it at a craft show and just couldn’t resist.

“It’s an all-round 21st century approach to a historical object, which appealed to me,” Ms. McGill said.