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
There is in the collection of the Imperial Kunstgewerbe Museum, Vienna,
an exceptionally fine example of the watch-ring, made by Johann Putz,
of Augsburg, in the seventeenth century. It has a detachable cover,
cut from an emerald, on which the Austrian double-eagle has been
engraved. In the same collection are two sun-dial rings; one, made in
the seventeenth century, has a lid figuring a hedgehog, studded with
black diamond lozenges; the other, a sixteenth century ring, bears
a Greek inscription to the effect that “time removes all things and
brings forgetfulness;” the sun-dial is on the inner side of this ring,
which is of silver gilt. There is also a gold astrolabe ring, which
when closed looks like an ordinary one; but when the connected circles
are opened up, the ring constitutes a veritable astrolabe.[144]
A gold “sphere-ring” in the British Museum collection has an outer
hoop in two parts, working like a gimmal, and three interior hoops
which are almost concealed when the ring is closed. The exterior hoop
is chased; on the inner surfaces, concealed from view when the ring is
closed, appears in sections the following inscription in black enamel:
Verbo Dei celi firmati sunt. Dixit et creata sunt, ipse mandavit et
creata sunt. (The heavens are founded in the word of God. He spoke and
they were created; he commanded and they were created.) After “firmati
sunt,” is the date 1555. The three interior hoops bear, enameled in
black, the signs of the zodiac, stars, and other astral figures. This
ring is of German workmanship.[145]
In the collection of works of art bequeathed to the British Museum in
1898 by Baron Ferdinand Rothschild, and designated as the Waddesdon
Bequest, there are several characteristic rings. Of these perhaps the
most notable is a large finger ring of gold, enameled and set with
jewels, a sixteenth century example of German workmanship. The bezel is
in the form of a clasped book; on the cover is a skull, about which
are four stones, sapphire, ruby, emerald, and diamond, and two toads
and snakes in enamel. When the book cover is thrown back there appears
a loose plate of gold, on which is enameled a recumbent figure with
skull and hour-glass; on the under side of the cover is inscribed in
black enamel (in capitals): SIVE VIVIMUS, SIVE MORIMUR, DOMINI
SUMUS. COMMENDA DOMINO VIAM TUAM, ET SPERA IN EUM ET IPSE FACIET
(Whether we live or whether we die we are the Lord’s. Commit thy way
unto the Lord and trust in Him, and He shall bring it to pass). This
combines the text, Romans xiv, 8 with Psalm xxxvii, 5. On the shoulders
of the ring are two groups in enamel, the Fall and the Expulsion from
Eden.[146]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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