A heart-shaped mourning pendant depicted in a 1635 painting has resurfaced nearly 400 years later, revealing a deeply personal story of grief from 17th-century England. The jewel commemorates Robert Aston, the six-year-old son of English landowner Sir Thomas Aston, who died in 1634. It contains a tassel made from the boy’s blond hair and bears Latin inscriptions expressing his parents’ sorrow. The pendant appears in Sir Thomas Aston at the Deathbed of His Wife, a painting by artist John Souch now held by Manchester Art Gallery. Its modern owners possessed the jewel for decades without knowing its historical significance. They recognised it while visiting an exhibition featuring the painting and contacted historian and jewellery specialist Martyn Downer.
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