LOT 0352

Large Post Medieval Merchant’s Seal Ring Engraved with 'BG' and Shield

GERMANY, 16TH CENTURY A.D.

1 1/8 in. (20.03 grams, 28.33 mm overall, 23.00 x 18.47 mm internal diameter (approximate size British T 1/2, USA 9 3/4, Europe 21.89, Japan 21)).

Engraved with the owner's initials ‘B G’ above a tilting shield with flanche; merchant's mark motif of capital 'A' and a cross.

Private collection, Europe.
Acquired on the English art market.

This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by a search certificate number no.13051-248349.

Similar examples in The Victoria and Albert Museum, accession numbers: M.223-1975, 717-1871 and M.341-1975; The British Museum, registration number: 1872,0604.391.

Merchants' marks were chosen by their owners as a form of personal cypher, and so it is almost impossible to decipher the owner of many merchants' marks, as they were not governed by the strict regulation and recording that heraldry laws dictated. Merchants' rings were engraved with geometric symbols used to mark their goods or personal belongings and used instead of a coat of arms for those not entitled to them. Most merchants in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had marks, easily identifiable and formed with a few strokes. Many such rings also bear religious or talismanic inscriptions or imagery, combining a spiritual with a commercial function. The shape of the shield on this example draws direct parallels to the heraldic shields and jewels of this period in Germany.