The veiled figure nielloed on the bezel of the ring may represent the Virgin Mary, the letters M.A. therefore referring to Maria. The Virgin and Child was an especially popular subject in Byzantine art and begins to appear on ring bezels in the 6th to 7th century. Images of Christ, the Virgin and saints functioned as sacred icons, irrespective of the materials with which they were made, invoking divine power and protecting the wearer or beholder.

Niello is a mixture of silver, lead, copper, sulphur and borax which when heated forms a black paste. It can be used to decorate metalwork by engraving a pattern into the metal which is filled with niello. When the mixture has cooled, it leaves a shiny black inlay. The collector Edmund Waterton, who owned this ring in the mid 19th century, claimed that the earliest recipe for niello he had found was by the writer Eraclius in the 8th century who had been drawing on Byzantine sources and that it was transcribed in the 15th century in a manuscript by Jean Le Begue.

This ring forms part of a collection of 760 rings and engraved gems from the collection of Edmund Waterton (1830-87). Waterton was one of the foremost ring collectors of the nineteenth century and was the author of several articles on rings, a book on English devotion to the Virgin Mary and an unfinished catalogue of his collection (the manuscript is now the National Art Library). Waterton was noted for his extravagance and financial troubles caused him to place his collection in pawn with the London jeweller Robert Phillips. When he was unable to repay the loan, Phillips offered to sell the collection to the Museum and it was acquired in 1871. A small group of rings which Waterton had held back were acquired in 1899.