RENAISSANCE TRADITION REVIVED IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY JEWELRY TRAINING

Gold ring with a D-section hoop that widens toward the shoulders, decorated with scrollwork, cartouches, and black-enameled capital-like terminals. These support a square bezel with an inverted, slightly convex pyramidal underside, ornamented with two white-enameled cartouche motifs and black-enameled cornucopia-like corner supports. On top is a table-cut rock crystal in a box setting with black surround, four white enamel accents, and a translucent-red-enameled frame. Inside the hoop are two hallmarks, one of which remains yet unidentified and may indicate the maker. The other is a French bigorne countermark, corresponding to the oval owl mark on the exterior of the hoop, which signifies gold jewelry imported into France from a non-treaty country (1893–1990) or foreign-made objects lacking a legible French maker’s mark (from 1902 onward). The ring remains in good, wearable condition.

Literature:

From the 1830s onward—particularly during the second half of the nineteenth century and even a little later—the Renaissance became a major source of inspiration in the decorative arts. Publications on Renaissance jewelry collections, along with reissued prints and drawings from the Renaissance period itself, fueled growing fascination among goldsmiths and art schools with all things Renaissance.
Rings of this same design can be found in numerous museum collections. They differ only in minor ornamental details and are often still described as Renaissance works. In fact, the design is based on an early seventeenth-century ring type attributed to various European countries (see Chadour/Joppien 1985, vol. II, pp. 162–163, cat. no. 252; Chadour 1994, vol. I, no. 698, with cited parallels).

Before the 1920s, Roland Jaeger—who published some of the rings in the Alice and Louis Koch Collection at the Swiss National Museum, Zurich—offered an intriguing clue which may explain the remarkable number of surviving rings of this type. Goldsmiths training at the Zeichenakademie Hanau (founded in 1776) were required to produce a Renaissance-style ring as part of their final examination. This practice might have contributed to the abundance of closely related examples. The Koch Collection alone contains thirteen such rings (see Chadour 1994, vol. II, nos. 1672–1684).

The Zeichenakademie Hanau, which still exists today, preserves several Neo-Renaissance rings in its own collection. Particularly noteworthy are two drawings in its library: one illustrating the same ring type alongside a detailed calculation of production costs, and another signed by Curt H. Dalisch and dated 1908, depicting four Renaissance-style rings. It is possible that similar requirements were in place at other German art schools as well.

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