Rings for the finger : $b from the earliest known times to the present, with full descriptions of the origin, early making, materials, the archæology, history, for affection, for love, for engagement, for wedding, commemorative, mourning, etc.Kunz, George Frederick
History
Rings for the finger : $b from the earliest known times to the present, with full descriptions of the origin, early making, materials, the archæology, history, for affection, for love, for engagement, for wedding, commemorative, mourning, etc.
Kunz, George Frederick
Rings; Rings -- Folklore
A portrait of Queen Elizabeth, elaborately be-pearled as usual, the
work of the Flemish painter, Lucas De Heere, shows her with a ring on
the little finger of her left hand. It is set with an oblong, table-cut
stone. This interesting portrait, which is in the Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York, while conforming generally to the type with which
we are familiar, differs in some respects therefrom. The very slender
neck, the delicacy of form and face, may, of course, represent
mannerisms of the artist.
The sapphire set in the ring thrown out of the window of Queen
Elizabeth’s death chamber by Lady Scrope to her brother Robert Carey,
as a signal that the queen was dead, so that he might be the first
to bear the news to her impatient successor, James I, was exhibited
in the great Loan Exhibition of Ancient and Modern Jewellery shown
at the South Kensington Museum in London, in 1872. As there shown,
this historic sapphire was the central ornament of a diamond star, or
cinque-foil. The original ring was given to John, Earl of Orrery, by
the Duchess of Buckingham, natural daughter of James II, and the small
brilliants surrounding it in its present setting are the same as those
which were about it in the ring.[327]
By the terms of his will, dated December 18, 1630, Sir Edward Coke, of
Godwick, bequeathed among other jewels two of historic significance.
One of these was a ring “set with a great Turkey (turquoise), which
King Henry the Eighth used to wear, and was painted with it on his
forefinger.” The other jewel, also a ring, is curiously suggestive when
we recall that an attempt (unsuccessful, of course) had been made to
poison the unfortunate Sir Thomas Overbury with diamond dust, before
poison of a more effective sort was administered to him. The ring in
question is described here as set with “a Diamon cut with faucetts
(facets)” and the statement is added that it had been given to Sir
Edward by Anne of Denmark, Queen of James I, “for the discovery of the
poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury.”[328]
A gold ring, said to have been one of five such rings given by Charles
I to Bishop Juxon, on the scaffold, just before the king’s execution,
was shown in the Loan Collection exhibited in the South Kensington
Museum, in London, in 1872. The statement is made that this ring was
presented by Bishop Juxon to Sir John Halloway, and from him passed
into the possession of the Dalby family. The ring bears a death’s head
in white enamel on a black ground, and has the motto, “Behold the
ende”; around the edge is the inscription, “Rather death then fals
fayth”; at the back are the initials “M” and “L,” tied with a mourning
ribbon.[329]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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