Space does not permit of detailed description of the wonderful Lennox or Darnley Jewel at Windsor Castle, purchased by Queen Victoria at the sale of Horace Walpole's collection at Strawberry Hill in 1842 (Pl. XXVIII, 4). The jewel has been fully described by Mr. Tytler and Mr. Albert Way.[166]
It has been impossible here to convey an adequate idea of all the various specimens of sixteenth-century pendants that exist at the present day. Attention has been drawn to a few of the most striking examples which stand out above the rest, either by reason of the beauty of their design or the superlative excellence of their workmanship, or by reason of their unique historical interest. While indicating the great public collections where these things are preserved, it must be left to amateurs to discover and appreciate for themselves, as they are bound to do, what, owing to exigencies of space, we are precluded from referring to in detail.
CHAPTER XXVIII
RENAISSANCE RINGS, BRACELETS, AND BROOCHES
THE splendour-loving sixteenth century far surpassed the Middle Ages in the use of the finger ring. No other ornament of the Renaissance attained such richness and profusion. In sixteenth and seventeenth century portraits rings are represented in such quantities that the hands appear overburdened with them; while the number entered in the old inventories is astounding. Yet it is well to remember that the word bague, which we translate a ring, was a general term for all pendent jewels—though not infrequently a distinction in the lists is drawn between bague à mettre aux oreilles (an earring), bague à pendre (a pendant), and bague à mettre au doigt. The extraordinary abundance of finger rings in use at the time may best be judged by a list in the inventory of Henry VIII of the year 1530, which contains no less than 234.
Of the large number of Renaissance rings that have survived to the present day most are of a purely ornamental character; and though many others are of interest on account of their emblematic or historical associations, those which display artistic work require the chief consideration. Out of all the rings that simply served the purpose of decoration, there are very few whose nationality can be easily determined. If it is difficult in the case of pendants and similar ornaments to come to a decision with regard to the question of provenance, it is even more so where rings are concerned.
Pictures of the period, as has been said, represent persons with their hands heavily loaded with rings, which are worn upon all the fingers, the thumb included. Every finger-joint up to the very nail is covered with them, and they are worn, as by the ancient Romans, even upon the knuckles. The great projection of the rings' bezels would have rendered the use of gloves impossible, were it not, as we know from pictures, for the custom of placing the rings outside the gloves, and also for the somewhat ugly fashion of slitting the fingers of the gloves, in order that they might be worn with greater comfort, and allow the rings themselves to be displayed. In a portrait of a lady by Lucas Cranach in the National Gallery, rings are worn both over and beneath the gloves, every finger and the thumbs having two or three. The rings under the gloves appear on the top of the second knuckle of every finger, and are visible through the crevés made in the gloves at these points. In other pictures by this artist, such as that entitled "Judith" at Vienna, and in the works of his contemporaries in Germany, the same slashed gloves are to be seen. Men's gloves, too, like their doublets, were slashed, as is clear from the engraved portrait of Duke William of Juliers, by Aldegrever. Bishop Hall (Satires, III, iv) refers thus to the current fashion:—
Nor can good Myson wear on his left hond,
A signet ring of Bristol diamond,[167]
But he must cut his glove to show his pride,
That his trim jewel might be better spy'd.