|
FORMS OF RINGS AND MATERIALS 89
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) : SITE VIVIMUS, SIVE MOKIMUR, 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.32
Sixteenth
century ring-making, so rich in its variety of eccentric types, evolved
whistle-rings, one of which is in the British Museum. This is of bronze
gilt; the large oval bezel is engraved with a shield of arms; the hoop
is slender at the back. The shoulders are engraved with strap-work, one
of them having a tubular whistle.33
An
enameled gold ring of striking and original design is owned by Dr.
Albert Figdor, Vienna. The bezel has a lid on which is enameled a head
wearing a half-mask; the eyes are of small lozenge-shaped diamonds, and
there is a bordering of seventeen rubies. On lifting
32 Sir
Charles Hercules Read, " The Waddesdon Bequest : Catalogue of the Works
of Art Bequeathed to the British Museum by Baron Ferdinand Rothschild,
M.P.," 1898 ; London, 1902, p. 94.
33
O. M. Dalton, " Catalogue of the Finger Rings, Early Christian,
Byzantine, Teutonic, Mediaeval, and Later [British Museum]," London,
1912, p. 87, No. 571, fig.
|
||
|
|
||