Rings for the finger

by George Frederick Kunz

To a special class has been given the name “iconographic rings,” this designates those bearing, either on the bezel or the sides, images of the Virgin and Child or of the saints. These rings, which date from a period running from 1390 to about 1520, are peculiar to England and Scotland. The material is either gold or silver, those of the latter metal showing much ruder workmanship than was devoted to the gold rings.[125]

What must have been regarded in its time as an exceptionally ornate ring is listed in an inventory of 1416. It is described as a gold ring having a helmet and a shield made of a sapphire, the shield bearing the arms of “Monseigneur.” As supports of the shield were an emerald bear and a swan made of a white chalcedony.[126]

An ornate though tasteless type of Italian rings were those called “giardinetti,” showing flower baskets, jardiniêres, or nosegays, the flowers being figured by precious stones and pearls, with stems and leaves of gold. As the aim was purely decorative, the stones and pearls were usually small and inexpensive ones. Very few such rings have been made in recent times, but from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century they were much favored and a number of fine specimens have been preserved from that period.[127]

A ring-setting consisting of a turquoise surrounded by small diamonds appears to have been favored in England in the seventeenth century, for Samuel Pepys in his “Diary,” under date of February 18, 1668, writes that he had been shown a “ring of a Turkey-stone, set with little sparks of diamonds.”

A “Trinity Ring,” that is a ring consisting of three intertwined circlets, was shown in February, 1857, to the Society of Antiquaries in London by Mr. Octavius Morgan. This specimen, carved, or turned out of a circular band of ivory, was believed to be one of three executed by the German ivory carver, Stephan Zick (1639–1715), who is said to have been the first to make a ring of this type out of ivory, although they may have been made of gold—no exceptionally difficult task—before Zick executed his ivory rings.[128] This ring, or one similar to it, is now in the British Museum, Franks Bequest.

While the rings of the Louis Quinze period were generally of delicate and beautiful form, the tendency to exaggeration in fashions that characterized the succeeding Louis Seize period found expression in rings of disproportionate size. At the same time both the number of rings in a fine lady’s jewel casket, and the number she would wear at the same time upon her hand, greatly increased over what was customary in the preceding reign. Thus Bachaument, in his “Mémoires Secrets,” states that at the sale of Mlle. de Beauvoisin’s jewels, which took place November 22, 1784, there were 200 rings rivalling one another in magnificence. Another French author of this time, M. Mercier, wrote in 1782 “when one takes the hand of a pretty woman, one only has the sensation of holding a quantity of rings and angular stones, and it would be necessary first to strip these off the hand before we could perceive its form and delicacy.”

The enthusiasm of the early days of the Revolution brought into vogue rings set with a little fragment of the stone-work of the recently demolished Bastille; at the same time wedding-rings were enamelled in red, white and blue, the new Republican colors. At the outset the young royalists, as a protest, wore rings of tortoise-shell, with the motto, Domine salvum fac regem, “God save the King.”

A type of ring that became popular during the darkest days of the French Revolution, the period of the dreadful Reign of Terror, was that of a large silver hoop with a plain gold bezel on which was graven the head of some one of the leading spirits of the time, such as Marat, De Chalier, or De Lepelletier St.-Fargeau.

There are several significant French proverbs regarding rings, of which we may here note the following: “Ne mets pas ton doigt en anneau trop étroit” (Do not put your finger in too small a ring); “Anneau en main, honneur vain” (A ring on the finger is an empty honor); “Bague d’amie porte envie” (The ring of a lady friend arouses envy).

Portrait rings were very popular at the time of the French Revolution, as they afforded an opportunity for the expression of the ardent devotion to particular personalities characteristic of that troublous period. Many Washington rings and Robespierre rings were to be seen, bearing the enamelled portrait of the respective hero, but the most popular were the Franklin rings, for Franklin’s personal influence, born of his sterling qualities of insight and common sense, and perhaps strengthened by the contrast of his cool-headedness with the feverish excitement of the Paris of that time, was wide and far-reaching.