Renaissance Turquoise Gemstone Ring
, Western Europe, about 1620-1630
Renaissance Turquoise Gemstone Ring
Description
This elegantly crafted ring conveys friendship and love through the choice of turquoise as the gemstone
Gold ring with D-section hoop, plain on the interior and on the exterior engraved along the shoulders with foliage, scroll, and four-petalled flowers (traces of enamel visible). The ends merge into the floral-shaped bezel with petals, filled with black enamel, and four ribbed supports ending in ornamental claws which surround the five turquoise cabochons in a flower-like cluster. Some enamel is missing along the hoop. The ring is in good wearable condition.
Literature:
The choice of gemstone as well as the symbolism on this ring suggest it would have been given as a token of friendship or love. Turquoise was considered the stone of friendship from as early as the Renaissance period, and this tradition continued well into the nineteenth century. The four-petalled flowers on the shoulders likely represent daisies, symbolic of innocence and modesty, and known as the flower of love. For hidden messages, see: Beatriz Chadour-Sampson, The Power of Love: Jewels, Romance, and Eternity, London, 2019, pp. 45-46.
The cluster design became fashionable in the seventeenth century and here, with turquoise, it takes on a floral form, like a rose, the flower associated with Venus, the goddess of love. In line with an increasing interest in botany, the language of flowers developed in jewelry. The claw-like feature on the underside of the bezel enclosing the floral form is of note. This first appears in the early seventeenth century and is originally found with black enamel and pointed diamond, see: Chadour 1994, vol. 1, no. 698, for history and attribution. For similar seventeenth-century cluster rings, see examples in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (Scarisbrick/Henig 2003, p. 60-61, Plate 21, 3), Alice and Louis Koch Collection in the Swiss National Museum, Zurich (Chadour 1994, vol. 1, no. 782), for the use of turquoise (Scarisbrick 2004, no. 186); floral ornament on the shoulders (Scarisbrick 1993, p. 98).
