This set of 12 rings was formerly in the possession of Queen Woyzaro Terunesh, second wife of the Ethiopian emperor Tewodros II (Theodore) and mother of the prince Alamayou. In 1864, frustrated by a lack of communication from Queen Victoria’s government, Tewodros took a number of Europeans captive, including the British consul, Captain Cameron. The British response was a military expedition of huge complexity and expense led by Sir Robert Napier. The expedition marched to Tewodros’s fortress at Maqdala where a brief battle took place. Britain won the conflict, but not before the captives were released and Tewodros himself had committed suicide.

Contemporary reports record that the widowed Queen expressed a wish to ‘be escorted as far as her native province of Semyen, in the north-west part of Tigreh [but] … when the head-quarters’ camp reached Aikhullet, on May 15 [1868], this poor lady died’, apparently of lung disease. ‘Her funeral took place next morning in the great church at Chelicut … The women of her household, showing her robe, her ornaments, her slippers and her drinking cup, beat their breasts, tore their hair, and scratched their cheeks, shedding tears of real grief as they bewailed her death’ (Illustrated London News, 1868). An inventory of the Queen’s possessions includes mention of ‘6 rings gold or brass, 6 rings silver or lead’. These possessions were sent on to the Secretary of State for India at the India Office, London, and given to the South Kensington (later V&A) Museum the following year.