LOT 2468

Post Medieval Elizabethan Gold 'Burghershe Family' Signet Ring

16TH-17TH CENTURY AD

1" (12 grams, 23mm overall, 21.89mm internal diameter (approximate size British Z, USA 12 1/2, Europe 28.77, Japan 27)).

A D-section gold hoop with flared shoulders, plate with bifacial plaque insert: obverse with intaglio seal comprising a heater shield with double-tailed rampant lion, helmet with elaborate mantle, mural crown, crest of a double-tailed lion rampant; to the reverse, an earlier signet panel with hatched central panel and surrounding italic legend '*Beware sell with the [Je?]well'.

UK art market, acquired prior to 2000. Supplied with a positive X-Ray Fluorescence metal analysis certificate.

The double-queued lion was adopted as a heraldic emblem by many English families. The arms appear, as here, in association with a helmet with mural crown and double-queued lion crest for the Burghershe family in William Berry's Encyclopedia Heraldica published 1828. The reverse of the signet has a hatched central panel, probably cancelling the previously engraved arms.