Details

LOT 1252

Post Medieval Elizabethan Gold Betrothal Signet Ring

MID 16TH CENTURY AD

1" (11 grams, 22mm overall, 19.13mm internal diameter (approximate size British S, USA 9, Europe 20.0, Japan 19)).

A shallow D-section gold hoop with expanding shoulders supporting an oval bezel with beaded and lined border, intaglio and retrograde initials 'W G' over looped entwined ribbon motif with heart at top and tassels to ends.

Provenance

Property of a Scottish gentleman; acquired from R. J. Falkingham of Peterborough in 1995; gifted to his daughter in the late 1990s; thence by descent 2004; found Billingford, Norfolk, UK; shown at Swaffham Museum, Norfolk, 24 August 1995 (accompanied by the museum's dated receipt). Supplied with a positive X-Ray Fluorescence metal analysis certificate.

Published

Accompanied by an Art Loss Register certificate.

Literature

Cf. Oman, C.C., British Rings 800-1914, London, 1974, plate 44B, E for an example showing very similar motifs.

Footnotes

The design of an entwined ribbon with initials on signet rings starts in the late Tudor period and becomes a popular design; the initials may for those of one person or be of the first names of a man and woman on betrothal and the heart motif included within the ribbon would suggest a 'love' element in the design.

CONDITION