Showing seal ring on index finger, two rings on third finger, and three on little finger of left hand
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
MAN AND WOMAN AT A CASEMENT
The woman wears three rings (sapphire, ruby and some other stone) on the index of right hand, and two on the middle finger of this hand, one of them on the second joint. The young man has a large oval topaz on the little finger of his left hand. Florentine, Fifteenth Century
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
For signet rings, antique gems continued to be those most favored until the Renaissance period, and even to a considerable extent during this period. However, the development and elaboration of the science of heraldry and the great importance accorded to the possession of armorial bearings soon induced the engraving of these upon the signets, in preference to using antique gems or copying their types. In Elizabeth’s reign and in those of her immediate successors, it is believed that scarcely a gentleman was to be found who did not own and wear a signet ring on which appeared his coat-of-arms. Those not fortunate enough to have the right to display armorial bearings, sometimes sought to make their signets individual by using as designs rebuses expressing more or less well the pronunciation of their names.[260]
Arms were sometimes blazoned on rings by enamel applied to the base of a setting; thus the arms engraved on a rock-crystal or a white sapphire, would appear with their proper hues, the colors showing through the transparent stone, and their effect being heightened by the brilliant medium. A fine example of this kind of ring is one made for Jean Sans-Peur, Duke of Burgundy (1401–1419); another is the signet ring of Mary, Queen of Scots, now in the British Museum.[261]
Bequests of signets to near relatives occur not infrequently in wills of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as for example in that of John Horton, dated 1565, wherein appears the following: “Item, I give unto my brother Anthony Horton, for a token, my golde ringe wth the seale of myne armes, desirenge him to be good to my wiffe and my childringe as my trust is in him.” Besides this seal ring, the testator willed “a golde ringe wth a turkes [turquoise] in it” to his “singular good Lord the Lord Eueerye,” with a plea for friendship toward his wife and children. A ring set with a diamond was bequeathed in 1427 by Elizabeth, Lady Fitzhugh to her son William.[262] This was almost certainly one of the uncut, pointed diamonds used for settings at this early time.
The signet ring of Mary Stuart is one of the chief treasures in the ring collection of the British Museum. It was made for her use after her betrothal to the French Dauphin, later, for a few months, King of France as Francis II (1543–1560), just before her marriage, as after that time the arms of France would have been combined with those of Scotland. The following description is given of this ring in the exceedingly valuable catalogue of the Franks Bequest by O. M. Dalton[263]: