Hebrew Marriage Rings.
A ring of gold, enamelled and decorated with five blue enamelled rosettes and five filigree bosses. The roof only of the temple surmounts the ring; it is decorated with light-green enamel, it opens on a hinge, and exhibits beneath the letters טוב. From the Londesborough Collection.
Hebrew Betrothal Ring.
A remarkably fine example of these rings is in the Braybrooke Collection. It has five filigree bosses equidistant along the broad exterior, which is also ornamented with filagree scroll-work, filled with blue and white enamel; the summit of the hoop is surmounted by a pyramid-shaped tower opening upon a hinge, but without any inscription, which is often covered by it. In this case the word or words are engraved on the inside of the ring, and are probably Mazul-touv or Mussul-taub (‘Joy be with you’). The tower is to represent the ark of the covenant; the bosses or points are sometimes supposed to represent the number of witnesses at the ceremony required by law of the Jews. The points or bosses consist of rosettes with six leaves, each of blue, and six leaves of white, enamel. The pyramidical ark has the sides filled with blue enamel only; on the two narrow sides there is a small perforation to represent the window, in allusion to the dove.
A large silver-gilt Hebrew wedding-ring, in the same collection, is of a remarkable form. The hoop is three-quarters of an inch wide, with raised edges, and plain surface between the five elevations on its upper portion. The centre one of these is a hexagonal tower, with pent-house roof sloping on each side to the course of the hoop; the gables and sides of these are pierced with fourteen holes for windows, and the roof is scored to imitate tiles; on each side of this is a smaller bell-shaped tower, equidistant from it, with four circular holes in them; and on each side of these last is a still smaller tower of the same shape, and at an equal distance, but without any windows. There is not the usual inscription on any part of this ring.
Jewish.
