AN UNUSUAL SILVER MEDIEVAL RING WITH COAT OF ARMS, 12TH-13TH CENTURY OR LATER

拍品描述

AN UNUSUAL SILVER MEDIEVAL SEAL RING WITH COAT OF ARMS, 12TH-13TH CENTURY OR LATER Of substantial form, the heavy silver hoop tapering from a broad, rounded shank to support a large oval bezel set transversely across the finger. The bezel is engraved in intaglio with an armorial device, its field occupied by a shield bearing a crenellated tower or castle of three tiers, rising through arched openings and battlements, surmounted by a coronet of five visible points above a beaded band. The surface of the silver has taken a dark, oxidised patina, with warm earthen deposits caught within the recesses of the intaglio that throw the design into relief. Fine scratches and abrasions run across the face and shoulders, consistent with prolonged use as a working seal. The device engraved on the bezel belongs to the vocabulary of European heraldry. A tower or castle on a shield is among the most widely borne charges of medieval armory, associated with lordship over a fortified place, with civic authority, or with families whose name or holdings referred to a castle. The coronet above the shield indicates rank, though the precise gradation cannot be read with certainty from the engraving alone. Read together, shield and coronet identify the wearer as a person of armigerous status entitled to seal documents in his own name, the impression of the ring in wax serving as the legal signature of its owner. Silver was the standard material for seal matrices of the medieval and early post-medieval European nobility and gentry. Its density took a clean intaglio, its surface resisted the pull of warm wax, and its intrinsic value befitted an object that functioned as the personal instrument of authentication. Unlike gold, which was reserved for the highest ranks and for ecclesiastical use, silver was the working metal of the seal-bearing class, and rings of this weight and scale were intended to be used rather than merely displayed. The transverse oval bezel, worn across the finger rather than along it, is the characteristic form for a signet designed to be pressed into wax without turning the hand. Armorial signet rings of this type were produced across a long period in Europe, and the tradition of the personal armorial seal ring continued from the high medieval period into the early modern era with relatively little change in essential form. The style of the coronet and the drawing of the tower on the present example suggest a date later than the twelfth or thirteenth century in its strictest sense, and the qualified dating supplied by the cataloguer reflects this. This ring exemplifies the working armorial signet of the European landed class, an object whose value lay less in its material than in the legal weight of the impression it carried. Its heavy shank, transverse bezel, and deeply cut arms show the priorities of a seal made to be used, and its worn surfaces record the long service for which such rings were made. Dimensions: Length of face 2.3 cm; internal diameter 2 cm

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