stone
of the hardness of a ruby. He regarded it as a work of the famous
Renaissance gem-cutter Domenico dei Carnei, this artist having engraved
a portrait of the Milanese duke Ludovico Sforza, surnamed II Moro, on
the same hard material. The gold plate at the back of the bezel holding
the gem bears the inscription " Loys XIIme Roy de France décéda I Janvier, 1515," the stone having been set in the ring at some time after the monarch's death.T0
This
collection also contains an imperfect specimen of a squirt-ring. The
hoop is of enamelled gold set with a garnet engraved in relief with a
mask or bacchic head finely executed by a sixteenth-century artist. The
hole at the base of the hoop, with its internal screw-worm, indicates
that it was once provided with a squirt for projecting perfumed liquids.T1
A
sixteenth-century portrait by the German painter, Conrad Faber, depicts
a well-to-do burgher, possibly a burgomaster, who wears a seal ring on
the index finger of his left hand and a ring with a precious stone
setting on the fourth finger of the same hand. In this hand he holds
something which may be a staff of office ; it is surmounted by an
octagonal block of ebony in which is inlaid a medallion figuring St.
George and the Dragon. The city, as carefully delineated in the
background as in the finest of engravings, appears to be one of the
historic Rhine cities, and is evidently that with which the sitter was
identified.
For signet rings, antique gems continued to be those
70 C.
Drury Fortnum, " Notes On Some of the Antique and Renaissance Gems and
Jewels in Her Majesty's Collection at Windsor Castle," London, 1876,
pp. 12, 13; cut double linear size on p. 13.
71 Ibid., p. 15.
