Details

LOT 0602

Post Medieval Elizabethan Gold 'Marquess of Winchester' Heraldic Signet Ring with Swords

LATER 16TH CENTURY AD

1" (31 grams, 28mm overall, 22.10mm internal diameter (approximate size British Z 1/2, USA 12 1/2, Europe 29.43, Japan 28)).

A D-section gold Tudor ring with flared shoulders and faux-twist to the underside, each shoulder facetted with median engraved arming sword, the bezel with sword and heater shield within a ring of eight pellets; the shield quartered with a fleur-de-lys, row of three swords pale-wise in fess (Marquess of Winchester), two bends and a fess, three lozenges (Freeman family).

Provenance

Property of a UK gentleman; acquired from a London gallery in the late 1980s; formerly from a private European collection, formed in the 1960s and 1970s. Accompanied by a positive X-Ray Fluorescence metal analysis certificate.

Literature

Cf. Oman, C.C. British Rings 800-1914, London, 1974, plate 50(C) and discussion relating to King Henry VIII (p.30-2).

Footnotes

The arms of the Marquess of Winchester appear here in second place after the fleur-de-lys badge of the Bourbon dynasty of French monarchy.

CONDITION