A ferronnière ([fɛʁ.ɔn.jɛʁ]) is a style of headband that encircles the wearer's forehead, usually with a small jewel suspended in the centre.^[1] The original form of the headband was worn in late fifteenth-century Italy, and was rechristened a ferronnière at the time of its revival in the second quarter of the nineteenth century for both day and (more frequently) formal and evening wear.^[2][3]

The term ferronnière for describing such headbands was probably coined in the early nineteenth century. Merriam-Webster date the earliest use of the term to 1831,^[4] and the Oxford English Dictionary notes that their record of the earliest usage of the term is located in a mid-19th-century publication called World of Fashion.^[5] Some sources suggest that the term was contemporary to the 1490s.^[6][7][8]

The ferronnière is often said to be named after a 1490s portrait attributed to the school of Leonardo da Vinci, the La belle ferronnière, where the sitter wears such an ornament.^{[2][3][9][10]} However, this painting's title was assigned in the 18th century,^[11] well after it was painted, under the erroneous assumption that it portrayed Madame Le Féron, a reputed mistress of Francis I of France; or another mistress who was allegedly an iron merchant's wife.^[9][10] The literal translation of ferronnière in English is "female ironmonger;" the term was used for the wife or daughter of an ironmonger.^[10] In their catalogue, the Louvre suggest that La belle ferronnière was so-called because of her forehead ornament, a theory that is supported by other scholars,^[11][12] but other sources conclude that the ornament was named after the painting, due to the term's specific application apparently not existing prior to the 19th century.^[5][9][10]

The original ornament that later became called a ferronnière was popular in 15th-century Italy, where it could be made from metal or jewels.^[6]

The nineteenth-century ferronnière was worn from the late 1820s to the early 1840s, when it was considered to enhance a high forehead, and by the 1850s, it had fallen out of fashion.^[2] One contemporary source from 1831 describes the ferronnière as "a small plait of hair, adorned in the centre of the forehead by a large brilliant, from which depends another brilliant of the pear shape."^[13] It has been described as one of the most widely worn examples of historicism in early Victorian fashion, worn as a tribute to the Renaissance alongside beaded belts called cordelières inspired by medieval clothing and hairstyles named after historic women such as Agnès Sorel and Blanche of Castile.^[14] The ferronnière could be worn for either day or evening.^[14] Alternative terms for similar ornaments were the bandelette and the tour de tête.^[15][16]

• La Malibran as Desdemona, François Bouchot, circa 1830
• Portrait of Natalia Pushkina, Alexander Brullov, 1831–1832