A fine example of a pearl-cluster ring is to be seen in the portrait of Princess Hatzfeldt by the artist Antonio Pesaro (1684–1757). The ring, worn on the little finger, has a large centre-pearl surrounded by five smaller ones, the whole constituting a rather inconveniently large jewel, although unquestionably a very beautiful one. It appears to be the only ring worn by the fair princess when posing for her portrait.
Finger rings were sometimes worn suspended from the neck, usually strung on a chain. This custom is testified to by several old portraits, among them by one of the Elector John Constans of Saxony, in the Collection of Prince George of Saxony, Dresden, and also in several of Lucas Cranach’s portraits. In one of the latter, depicting an elderly and hard-featured Dutch lady, eight rings are to be seen strung on a chain or band below the collar. As the sitter’s hands are adorned with five rings, her object may rather have been to display all her choicest rings, than to wear them as amulets, although this superstitious use is generally believed to be the true explanation of wearing finger-rings suspended from the neck. Sometimes a single ring was hung from the neck on a long string, and rings were occasionally worn attached to a hat or cap, as shown in the portrait of Bernhard IV, Margrave of Baden (1474–1536), by Hans Baldung Grien, in the Pinakothek, Munich.[109]
The painting of hands adorned with one or more rings, was not favored by several of the portraitists of the seventeenth century. Few if any rings, for example, can be found on the delicately shaped hands of any of Sir Peter Lyly’s beauties, hands undoubtedly lacking in individuality and conforming to a preconceived type. Vandyke’s usage in this respect varied, probably, with the taste of the respective sitters, although the frequent absence of rings might lead to the inference that he did not favor them in portraits. The great masters of the sixteenth century certainly gave no evidence of any such prejudice, their realism and their fondness for rich ornament and color causing them to adorn the hands of their subjects, both men and women, with valuable and finely wrought rings. With eighteenth century painters, the tendency to discard rings was very pronounced, as indicated by their sparing appearance in portraits of this period.
It may be interesting to note the distribution of the rings in seventeen portraits of the Blakeslee Collection, disposed of in New York City, March, 1916, and representing a kind of average for the period from the latter part of the sixteenth century to the beginning of the nineteenth century:
| Right Hand | Left Hand |
| Index finger, 7 | Index finger, 4 |
| Middle finger, 1 | Middle finger, 0 |
| Fourth finger, 7 | Fourth finger, 7 |
| Little finger, 1 | Little finger, 6 |
Thus the index and fourth fingers of the right hand and the fourth and little fingers of the left hand are almost equally favored.
An oil-portrait of the Mahârânî of Sikkim, painted in 1908 by Damodar Dutt, a Bengali artist, shows this queen decked out with all her favorite jewel adornments; among them are two gold rings, one set with a turquoise and the other with a coral, on the middle and fourth fingers of the left hand (see Frontispiece). The right hand is concealed in a fold of her mantle, but had there been any rings on it, it would probably have been displayed, to judge from the variety of the ornaments she was pleased to wear at the sittings. She is a full-blooded Tibetan princess, was born in 1864, and became the second wife of the King of Sikkim in 1882, so that she was forty-four years old when the portrait was painted. At this time she and her husband had been held in captivity by the British since 1893. The singular crown is the one adopted by the queens of Sikkim. It is composed of broad bandeaux of pearl, turquoise and coral; the gold earrings are inlaid with turquoise in concentric rings; the necklace has large amber balls, and suspended from it is a gau or charm-box, set with rubies, lapis lazuli and turquoise; on the wrist is a triple bracelet of corals.[110]
In the opinion of J. Alden Wier, President of the Academy of Design, New York City, rings can scarcely be regarded as in any sense important accessories of a good portrait, as this does not depend upon the elaboration of such detail. With Popes and Doges, and with some of the higher ecclesiastics, however, rings are significant as insignia of office, and are therefore depicted as marks of individuality.[111]
A fifteenth century example of a thumb ring was found in England at Saxon’s Lode, a little south of Upton. The material was of silver, either considerably alloyed, or else plated with a baser metal. In seventeenth century times in England the wearing of such rings was favored by many of the richer, or more prominent citizens, so that they served to differentiate the wearer from those less well-to-do, although he might not have the right to a crest or coat-of-arms. A character in one of the Lord Mayor’s shows given in the reign of Charles II (1664), is described as “habited like a grave citizen,—gold girdle and gloves hung thereon, rings on his fingers, and a seal ring on his thumb,” like Falstaff’s alderman.[112]
