Signet Ring with Head of a Roman Emperor and Initials ‘HN’
, Probably Italy, 16th century
Signet Ring with Head of a Roman Emperor and Initials ‘HN’
provenance
PERSONAL SIGNET PAYING TRIBUTE TO PHILOSOPHER-EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS
Heavy gold ring with round cross section widening at the shoulders and merging into an oval bezel. The shoulders are engraved with acanthus foliage. The bezel is engraved with a male bust in profile facing right, framed by a dotted border. The figure is depicted with densely curled hair and a long beard and wears a tunic clasped at the shoulder. Flanking the bust are the initials “HN”, engraved in reverse for sealing. The ring shows signs of wear through age, especially on the shoulders, but remains in good, wearable condition.
Provenance:
United Kingdom, The Jonest Collection, published in: Diana Scarisbrick and Sonja Butler, Marvels in Miniature, The Jonest Collection of Rings, London 2024, p. 63, no. 32.
Literature:
The expansion of trade across Europe and beyond during the Renaissance brought growing wealth to merchants, guilds, and landowners. Signet rings, once a prerogative of the nobility as symbols of rank and authority, became increasingly widespread as practical instruments of identification, used to authenticate documents and mark ownership of property or merchandise in trade. The imagery or initials were often engraved in reverse, as seen here with the letters “HN,” which would have identified the owner of this substantial gold ring. When pressed into warm sealing wax, the initials would appear in their correct orientation.
Signet rings were highly personal objects, bearing initials, family crests, professional emblems, or imagery of personal significance to the wearer. The latter may be the case with the present ring, whose engraved portrait recalls representations of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (r. 161–180) on ancient coinage. His distinctive appearance of densely curled hair and long beard was closely associated with his fame as a philosopher-emperor (Susan Walker, Greek and Roman Portraits, London, 1995, pp. 92–93; A. T. Croom, Roman Clothing and Fashion, Charleston, 2002, pp. 65–66). A celebrated Stoic philosopher, Marcus Aurelius was the author of the Meditations, a collection of personal reflections on the pursuit of virtue, self-discipline, and the principles of Stoic philosophy. Renaissance medals and portraits of contemporary rulers often adopted the profile format characteristic of Roman imperial portraiture in classical antiquity. Such imagery was both fashionable and a sign of status and humanist education. The owner of this ring, identified by the initials “HN,” was likely a person of high status, and his choice of Marcus Aurelius may suggest that he was himself a philosopher or an admirer of Stoicism.
For Renaissance signet rings with portraits of Roman emperors, compare an example in the British Museum, London (Dalton 1912, no. 623; Oman 1974, pl. 52D), and a ring set with an intaglio (Scarisbrick 2007, p. 35, fig. 41).