Description
DEVOTIONAL RING EXPRESSING SPIRITUAL PIETY AND REFINED FASHION
Gold ring with D-section hoop, trifurcating at the shoulders with decorative foliage in relief supporting the bezel. The oval, bowl-shaped underside is ribbed, surmounted by a collet-set, faceted, and foiled rock crystal, carved on which is a gold-filled miniature Crucifixion scene in intaglio with Christ on the Cross flanked by the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Evangelist. The ring shows signs of wear through age and remains in good, wearable condition.
Literature:
In seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe, it was fashionable to wear rings featuring miniature pictorial scenes executed in painted enamel, finely carved ivory, or, as in the present example, intaglio with gold foil. Comparable rings depicting the Crucifixion, most often attributed to France, are preserved in the Griffin Collection (Scarisbrick 2024, no. 21); the Hashimoto Collection, National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo (Scarisbrick 2004, no. 212); and the British Museum, formerly the Hull Grundy Collection (Charlotte Gere, Judy Rudoe, Hugh Tait, Timothy Wilson, The Art of the Jeweller, London, 1984, no. 304; Dalton 1912, no. 779).
The miniature scenes on such rings frequently depicted pastoral subjects, themes of love, or devotional imagery (see Scarisbrick 1993, pp. 146–147). The present ring, with its Crucifixion, would have served as a personal expression of faith and a reminder of Christ’s sacrifice and the redemption of humanity. Its owner was almost certainly Catholic, as Protestants generally rejected overt visual expressions of religious devotion in jewelry. At once an object of intimate piety and a reflection of contemporary fashion, the ring embodies both spiritual devotion and refined taste.