Rings

Charming sculpturesque ring in the form of a bird by the renowned Mosheh Oved

The heavy silver ring with hammered surface is modelled as a bird standing on a base with a round opening forming the hoop for the finger. The bird with its wings spread out on one side has its head with gold beak resting on a branch with stylized foliage on the other side. The ring shows signs of wear, light scratches through age, and is in good wearable condition.

Provenance:

The former owner of this ring remembers her mother acquiring it from Mosheh Oved around 1943-1944.  

Literature:

Mosheh Oved’s first animal rings were created during the bombing raids of London during the Second World War. Amid one of these raids his wife Sah Oved observed how Mosheh’s hands were trembling. Whilst sheltering in the basement of their Bloomsbury shop, Cameo Corner, she would give him some modelling wax to steady his hands, and that is when the series of animal rings began. His first attempts were either lambs or a kid on shaky legs. Another touching story from this period is that Mosheh made a ring shaped like a wounded lamb from the metal of his own cuff links as a spontaneous act of giving and sympathy for a client who had recently lost his son in battle. The base of these rings often includes an inscription, such as “the soul doth feed a virtuous deed” or “where is the house of my father” and “the lights of heaven within me.” 

Mosheh Oved, Vision and Jewels, Autobiographic in Three Parts, London 1952; Peter Hinks, Twentieth Century British Jewellery 1900-1980, London and Boston 1983, p. 86; Elsa Zorn Karlin, Jewelry and Metalwork in the Arts and Crafts Tradition, Atglen, Pennsylvania 1993, p. 86; Beatriz Chadour-Sampson/ Sonya Newell-Smith, Tadema Gallery London, Jewellery from the 1860s – 1960s, Stuttgart 2021, pp. 42, 400.

R-1084