ring consisting of a narrow plain gold band. There is faintly
discernible on this a winged head, apparently a skull, similar to the
heads of this type sometimes to be seen sculptured on old gravestones.
Around the inner side of the band runs the following inscription:
“Ho^{ble} I. Winslow Esq^r., ob. 14 Dec^r. 1738 Æ 68.”[83] This refers
to Isaac Winslow, a son of the noted Josiah Winslow (1629–1680),
governor of Plymouth Colony from 1673 until his death, and who was the
first native-born governor in New England. It was during his term of
office that the severe contest with the Indians, known as King Philip’s
War, was fought out successfully.
A mourning ring with a strangely materialistic motto is that executed
by order of the Beefsteak Club to commemorate the demise of John
Thornhill, Esq., on September 23, 1757, according to the inscription in
white enamel on the hoop. The bezel is flat and of oval form, enamelled
in pale blue and white; in the centre is shown a gridiron and around
this is the legend: “Beef and Liberty.”[84] The Beefsteak Club, formed
early in the eighteenth century, was Tory in politics, an opponent of
the Kit-Cat Club, whose members were devoted to the success of the
Whigs.
Rings as memorials of the dead suggest the mention of a memorial
ring of another kind, one destined to favor the revival of a defunct
government. When Napoleon I was exiled to Elba after the overthrow of
his empire and the restoration of the Bourbons, many of his faithful
followers clung to the hope that he would return and re-establish his
rule in France. In order to aid in keeping this hope alive, a number
of rings were made which could be worn with impunity, but which could
also serve when desired as proofs of the wearers’ attachment to the
Napoleonic cause. One of these is described as a gold ring on which
a minute gold and enamel coffin was set; on pressing a spring at the
side of the ring a section of the circlet sprang up and revealed a tiny
figure of Napoleon executed in enamel.[85]
At the English Bar, the usage long existed that certain chosen
barristers should be given the title and superior rank of serjeants. In
important cases, a serjeant was usually retained as principal manager
and chief representative at the trial, and generally made the statement
of the case in court, while one or more ordinary barristers got up the
evidence and aided in the examination of witnesses; no serjeants have
been appointed since 1868. As with almost all the stages of an English
law-student’s and barrister’s progress, heavy expenses had to be born
by the new serjeant, as he was expected not only to give a splendid
dinner, or rather a series of dinners lasting for a week, to all who
were closely or distantly related to his preferment, but to bestow a
gold ring upon each one of the numerous guests, these “serjeant rings”
varying in elegance and value according to the rank of the recipient.
So strictly was this purely traditional custom construed that a close
watch was kept to prevent any cheapening of the quality or intrinsic
value of these obligatory rings. As it had been laid down by a leading
authority that the ring to be given to a chief justice, or “chief
baron,” must have the weight of twenty shillings’ worth of gold, a
formal protest was made on one occasion, when rings weighing a tenth
less than this had been bestowed, not, as Lord Chief Justice Kelynge
told the newly appointed serjeants, because of the money value, but
“that it might not be drawn into a precedent.”[86] The average cost of
one of these bestowals of rings has been estimated at about £40 ($200).
The first definite notice of the bestowal of serjeants’ rings comes
from the later years of Elizabeth’s reign, although the usage is
believed to date back at least as far as the time of Henry VI
(1422–1461). The Latin motto on a ring of Sir John Fineux, called in
1485, is “_Suæ quisque fortunæ faber_,” or “Every man is the
artizan of his own fortune.” The mottoes engraved on these rings have
varied from reign to reign. One of Elizabeth’s time bears “_Lex
regis præsidium_” (The Law is the stronghold of the King); under
Charles II the motto was “_Adest Carolus magnus_” (Charles the
Great is with us). Much more dignified and telling is the motto in
James II’s reign, “_Deus, lex, rex_” (God, the Law, the King),
implying that God is the source of the law, and that the law is above
kings. As to the heavy tax sometimes imposed upon a new barrister’s
pecuniary resources, it is stated that on one occasion 1409 rings were
given at an expense of £773 ($3865). The usage, though maintained to a
considerable extent, became somewhat less oppressive toward the end of
the eighteenth century, but even in 1856 rings were given, some of them
bearing the motto “_Cedant arma togæ_” (Arms will give place to
the Gown) in allusion to the approaching peace with Russia after the
Crimean War.[87]
About 1830, when popular feeling was roused to the highest pitch by the
agitation for the repeal of the Corn Laws, many rings were set with the
following stones, the initial letters forming the word “repeal”:
Ruby
Emerald
Pearl
Emerald
Amethyst
Lapis lazuli
An Irishman, who owned such a ring, noted one day that the lapis lazuli
had fallen out, and took the ring to a jeweller in Cork, to have the
missing stone replaced. When the work was completed, the owner, seeing
that the jeweller had set a topaz in place of a lapis lazuli, protested
against the substitution; but the jeweller induced him to accept the
ring as it was, by the witty explanation that it now read “repeat,” and
that if the agitation were often enough repeated, the repeal would come
of itself.[88]
[Illustration: Crossed hands of the figure of a woman upon a
mummy case in the British Museum
Fairholt’s “Rambles of an Artist”]
[Illustration: Hands from portrait of a woman. School of Cranach
British Museum]
[Illustration:
Hindu ring jewel combining a ring for each finger and for the
thumb, a large ornament for the back of the hand, and a bracelet
Barth, “Das Geschmeide”]
[Illustration:
Hands from effigy of Sir Humphrey Stafford’s wife in Bromsgrove
Church, Staffordshire, England. Rings on every finger except on
little finger of right hand. Four of these rings are figured, the
full size of the originals
Fairholt’s “Rambles of an Artist”]
[Illustration: Three rings strung on a necklace. Detail of
portrait of John Constans of Saxony
British Museum]
[Illustration: Right hand from portrait of Benedict von
Hertenstein by Holbein; seal on index finger
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York]
[Illustration: Hands from Botticini’s “St. Jerome with St.
Damasius and other Saints”
National Gallery, London]
METHODS OF WEARING
A striking illustration of the large number of rings that some of
the noblewomen of ancient Egypt wore on their fingers is given by
the crossed hands of the wooden image on a mummy case in the British
Museum. The left hand is given a decided preference in this respect
over the right, there being no less than nine rings on the former
against but three on the latter. These left-hand rings comprise one
thumb-ring (the signet), three for the index, two for the middle
finger, two for the “ring-finger,” and one for the little finger. The
thumb of the right hand bears a ring and two are on the middle finger.
In the tomb of a king of the Chersonesus, discovered at Nicopolis
in the Crimea, two rings were on the king’s hand and ten on that of
the queen. The style of workmanship indicated that these rings were
productions of the Greek art of the fourth century B.C.,[89] a
period when in the Greek world rings were usually worn more sparingly,
in contrast with the fashion that prevailed during the latter part of
the first Christian century in Rome.
The fine Egyptian collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in
New York City offers an illustration of Egyptian ring wearing at the
beginning of our era. This appears in the mummy-case of Artemidora,
daughter of Harpocradorus, who died in her twenty-seventh year. The
wooden case figures the form of the deceased woman. The index, fourth
and little fingers of the left hand, each bear a ring; the fingers of
the right hand have been broken off. The hands are of stucco and the
rings are gilded.
In the Golden Age of Greek gem-engraving, from about 480 B.C.
to 400 B.C., the scarab, never used by the Greeks of Asia
Minor, came into general disuse in the Greek world, and a type of
ring-stone appeared, destined to become very popular. In these the
engraving was often done on the convex side of a scaraboid form, the
convexity having been much flattened out, while with the true scarab
the flat underside bore the engraved design or characters. Occasionally
ring-stones had been originally pierced for suspension. The flattened
scaraboid marked a transition to the flat ring-stones; but few, if
any, examples of these antedate the beginning of the fourth century
B.C.
One of the theories given by Macrobius to explain the wearing of
rings on the fourth finger, attributes this usage to the desire to
guard the precious setting of the ring from injury. He states that
rings were first worn, not for ornament, but for use as signets, and
in the beginning were made exclusively of metal. However, with the
increase of wealth and luxury, precious stones were engraved and set
in the metal ring, and it became necessary to place such a ring on
the best-protected finger. The thumbs were most constantly used; the
index was too exposed; the third finger was too long, and the little
finger too small, while the right hand was much more frequently used
than the left hand. Hence the choice fell upon the fourth finger of
the left hand as the best fitted to receive a precious ring.[90] Pliny
declares that while at first, in the Roman world, the ring was worn on
the fourth finger, as was shown in the statues of the old kings Numa
Pompilius and Servius Tullius, it was later on shifted to the index and
finally to the little finger,[91] this being in accord with our modern
custom, for men’s seal-rings especially.
[Illustration: UPPER PART OF THE MUMMY CASE OF ARTEMIDORA,
DAUGHTER OF HARPOCRADORUS (ABOUT 100 A. D.)
She died at the age of twenty-seven. On the fingers of the left
hand there are three rings; the fingers of the right hand are
broken off. The rings (which are gilded) as well as the hands
themselves are modeled in relief in stucco
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. Gift of J. Pierpont
Morgan, Esq.]
[Illustration: SKETCH KINDLY MADE FOR THE AUTHOR BY SIR CHARLES
HERCULES READ
Curator of the Department of British and Medieval Antiquities and
Ethnography in the British Museum, with his autograph description]
Isidore of Seville, in his brief chapters on rings, cites the words
spoken by Gracchus against Mænius, before the Roman Senate, as a proof
that the wearing of many rings was then considered to be unworthy of
a man. The speaker calls upon his hearers to “look upon the left
hand of this man to whose authority we bow, but who with a woman’s
vanity, is adorned like a woman.” The Bishop of Seville also adduces
the declaration of Crassus who, as an explanation for his wearing two
rings, although an old man, said that he did so in the belief that they
would further increase his already immense wealth.[92] Hence he must
have thought them endowed with some magic power.
One explanation of the greater supply of ancient gems of the period
subsequent to the Augustan Age, as compared with those of an earlier
date, has been found in the increasing popularity of ring-wearing.
Horace (65–8 B.C.) already considers three rings on the hand
as marking the limit of fashionable wear, but Martial (ab. 40–104
A.D.), writing a century later, tells of a Roman dandy who
wore six rings on each finger. As an instance of the multiplication of
seal-rings, Pliny states[93] that the signet proper had to be placed
for safe-keeping in a special receptacle, which was then stamped with
the impression of _another_ seal, lest some improper use should be
made of the signet, the equivalent of an individual signature.[94]
When the usage of wearing rings set with plain or engraved precious
stones became general in Rome, special caskets were made--many of
them of ivory--to contain the rings and other small jewels. The name
_dactyliotheca_, “ring-treasury,” was given to such a casket. The
first Roman to own one was Emilius Scaurus, son-in-law of Sylla (138–78
B.C.), who lived in the early part of the first century before
Christ, but for a long time his example was not followed by the Romans,
the next _dactyliotheca_ to be seen in Rome being that dedicated
by Pompey to the Capitol in 61 B.C., out of the spoils of
Mithridates the Great, who owned the most famous gem collection of his
time.[95] In the first century A.D. these ring-caskets came
into general use, and were regarded as indispensable parts of a rich
man’s luxury. This is brought out in one of Martial’s epigrams when,
after saying that Charmius wore six rings on each finger and kept them
on at night and even when he took his bath, he proceeds: “You ask why
he does so? Because he has no _dactyliotheca_.”[96] This evidently
implies that he lacked one of the elements of Roman “good form” in the
fashionable world.
The Latin epigrammatist whose brief, caustic poems are a mine of
information regarding the customs and costumes of the Romans in the
Imperial age, wrote the following couplet, probably designed for an
inscription upon a _dactyliotheca_, or ring-case:[97]
“Often does the heavy ring slip off the anointed fingers; but if you
confide your jewel to me, it will be safe.”
In the large ring collections of royal treasuries or of wealthy nobles
in mediæval times, the rings with precious-stone settings were often
classified according to the particular stones, and then those of each
of these classes were strung on one or more small sticks or wands
(_bacula_). Among King John’s (1167–1216) jewels in the Tower
of London, an inventory of 1205 lists several such _baculæ_,
one with 26 diamonds, two with 40 and 47 emeralds, respectively,
another shorter one with 7 “good” topazes and still another with 9
turquoises.[98] Jewellers also, were wont to keep their rings strung on
such small rods, an example of this being shown in a portrait depicting
a jeweller, painted by an unknown German artist of the sixteenth or
seventeenth century.
With other royal collections of rings the classified set rings were
kept already in ancient times in _dactyliothecæ_, or ring-caskets,
the term _dactyliotheca_ coming to be used later more broadly as
an equivalent for “ring collection” or even “gem collection.” In 1272
the Crown Jewels of Henry III of England included a number of these
ring boxes, four of them for 106 ruby, or balas-ruby rings, two for
38 emerald rings, one for 20 sapphire rings, and another for 11 topaz
rings and one set with a peridot.[99]
The following description of a jade (nephrite) ringbox of
seventeenth-century Indian workmanship, in the Heber R. Bishop
Collection, is given in one of the great folios treating of these
wonderful jades.[100]
A small covered box of three compartments in the form of three
compressed plums (or similar fruit) held together by the twigs
and leaves of a leafy branch which projects to form a handle, and
hollowed out to form a receptacle for finger-rings, studs or the
like. The box proper is decorated underneath with leaves carved
in slight relief, and is flanged on the edges to receive the
three upper segments of the fruit which forms the cover and are
similarly decorated on top with plum blossoms and held together
by a twig, a leaf, and an upright bud which serves as a handle.
The whole is very daintily cut and polished, and is so thin and of
such translucency that print in contact with it can easily be read
through it. The mineral is remarkably pure and resembles a pale
transparent horn.
While the Greeks and Romans did not usually wear rings on the middle
finger, the Gauls and Britons adorned it in this way. In the sixteenth
century it was customary to assign rings as follows, according to the
quality of the wearer:[101]
To the thumb for doctors.
To the index finger for merchants.
To the middle finger for fools.
To the annular finger for students.
To the auricular finger for lovers.
There is a curious Hindu superstition to the effect that anyone who
wears a ring on the middle finger will probably be attacked and bitten
by a scorpion. For this reason the Hindus are said to avoid wearing any
rings on this finger, although the others are laden with them, each
finger-joint having its special adornment.[102] In the Græco-Roman
world also there was a prejudice against decorating the middle finger
with a ring.
Regarding the liberality with which the Greeks and Romans of the second
century of our era used ring adornments for their fingers, the great
Greek humorist Lucian gives testimony. In his writing entitled “The
Cock,” he makes a character relate a dream in which the dreamer thought
that a rich man had just died and had left him his fortune. Thereupon,
in his dream, he saw himself arrayed in splendid raiment and wearing
_sixteen_ rings on his fingers.[103]
Of the affectations practiced in ring wearing by some _nouveau-riches_
foreigners in Roman times, Juvenal says: When one sees an Egyptian
plebeian, not long before a slave in Canopus, carelessly throwing back
over his shoulder a mantle of Tyrian purple, and seeking to cool his
perspiring fingers by wearing summer-rings of openwork gold, as he
cannot bear the weight of gemmed rings, how can one fail to write it
down in a satire?[104]
Indeed, to judge from the weight and size of some of the rings that
have been preserved from ancient times, this practice was not quite so
foolish as it may seem, for in the moist heat of the dog-day in Rome
such heavy rings may well have been a burden. With the Roman ladies
rings bearing images of the animals worshipped by the Egyptians came
into fashion in Imperial times, favored no doubt by the enthusiastic
worship of Isis and Serapis. Such rings are said to have been worn
almost exclusively by women up to the reign of Vespasian, when men
began to wear them also.[105]
In ancient Rome it was not unusual for the admirer of a philosopher
or a poet to wear his portrait engraved on a ring-stone. One of
the elegies of Ovid[106] (b. 43 B.C.), written during his
banishment from Rome, by order of Augustus, alludes feelingly to this
custom. The poem is addressed to a faithful friend, who wears the
poet’s portrait in his ring, and Ovid says: “In casting your eye upon
this, perhaps you sometimes say, ‘how far away is poor Ovid now!’” He
died in exile in 18 A.D.
So huge were the proportions of the Roman emperor Maximinus (d. 238
A.D.), who rose from the ranks to the imperial dignity, that
he is said to have used his wife’s bracelet for a thumb-ring.[107]
The great size of some of the Roman rings to be seen in collections
indicates that they could only have been worn on the thumb.
One of the fingers of a bronze statue in the British Museum, a Roman
work of the third or fourth century, A.D., has a ring on its
second joint. We are fortunate enough to be able to reproduce here a
full-size drawing of this, courteously made for the present book by
Sir Charles Hercules Read, Curator of the Department of British and
Mediæval Antiquities and Ethnography in the Museum.
In a letter to M. Deloche, the German archæologist Lindenschmit states
that in only one instance was he able to ascertain definitely on
which finger the rings of the early mediæval period were worn. This
concerned a female skeleton, exceptionally well preserved, owing to
favorable conditions of sepulture; on the fourth finger of the right
hand there was a bronze ring. This sepulchre was found at Obermorlen,
in Hessen-Darmstadt. Researches in France have furnished confirmation
of this. In the Merovingian cemetery of Yeulle (dept. Pas-de-Calais) a
woman’s ring was found on the right hand of the skeleton, as was also
the case with two rings in the Visigothic and Merovingian cemetery at
Herpes (dept. Charente), and this proved to be the case with almost
all the early medieval rings found in this region. On the contrary, M.
Albert Béquet, Curator of the Archæological Museum of Namur, and the
French archæologist, M. L. Pilloy, report the discovery of rings placed
upon the left hand. As a possible explanation of these contradictory
results, the opinion has been advanced that the rings on the right hand
were wedding rings, and those on the left, rings worn for ornament,
as there is good evidence that at an early period among the Gauls the
betrothal ring was put on the right hand, not on the left.[108]
The portrait by Coello of Maria of Austria, daughter of Charles V of
Germany, shows on the fourth finger of the left hand a ring set with a
large table-cut stone, which may be a ruby, or else a rather dark-hued
spinel. The right hand is gloved, the parts of the glove covering the
index and fourth fingers having slits so as to give space for the rings
on those fingers. There is an elaborate girdle of table-cut stones, a
richly worked cross with three pendent pear-shaped pearls is suspended
from a gauze scarf about the neck, splendid pearl earrings hang from
the ears, and the coiffure is surmounted by a head ornament set with
precious stones and pearls.
In a three-quarter length portrait of Henry VIII, painted by Hans
Holbein in 1540, when the king was in his forty-sixth year, he is
represented wearing three rings on his hands, two of these, set with
square-cut stones, are on the index fingers of the right and left hand,
respectively. The third and smaller ring, also set with a square-cut
stone, is on the little finger of the king’s left hand. There is an
intentional harmony in the jewelling, for stones of the same form,
alternating with pearls, adorn the collar suspended from Henry’s neck
and serve also as decoration for the sleeve-guards. This portrait is in
the Reale Galleria d’Arte Antica, Rome.
Princess Mary, daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, and
afterwards Queen of England (1553–1558), is portrayed in a painting in
the University Galleries, Oxford, by an unknown artist, as wearing, in
addition to many fine pearls both round and pear-shaped, three rings,
one on the index, another on the middle finger, and the third on the
fourth finger of the left hand. That on the middle finger is set with
a pearl, and the ring-adornment of this finger is quite worthy of note
because of the comparative rarity of this setting.
A large pear-shaped pearl, figured on a portrait of “Bloody Mary,” was
given to her by Philip of Spain, who afterward took it back to Spain
with him. It later came into the possession of Jerome Bonaparte, who
gave it to Queen Hortense. She gave it to the young prince, who later
became Napoleon III, and he, in turn, disposed of it to the Duke of
Abercorn, in whose possession it now remains. Allison V. Armour, Esq.,
to whom it was shown in Ireland by the Duke, at the time of an expected
visit from King Edward, told the author it was very interesting to note
that it had apparently preserved all its original lustre.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF A LADY, BY ANTON VAN DYKE (1599–1641)
The thumb ring on the right hand, and the ring on the index
of the left hand, are both set with square-cut stones, the
last-named probably a ruby
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Marquand Gift, 1888]
[Illustration: PRINCESS HATZFELD, BY ANTONIO PESARO (1684–1757)
Large pearl cluster on little finger of right hand
Catholina Lambert Collection sold at American Art Galleries, New
York, February, 1916]
The adornment with a ring of the second phalanx of the right-hand
middle finger, appears in the fine portrait, said to be that of Mary
Stuart, in the Prado Gallery, Madrid; the little finger of the same
hand shows a stone-set ring, worn as usual. Over the elaborately
embroidered bodice hangs a neck-ornament, at the different sections
of which are groups of three pearls, and there are pearl earrings
in the ears, as well as groups of pearls in the head-ornament. The
portrait is listed as a production of the French School, but is of
doubtful authenticity as a likeness of the unhappy queen.