Thumb ring, white nephrite jade, red and green foiled cabochons in gilt settings, India, formerly in the Guthrie collection

An asymmetric thumb ring, fashioned in white nephrite jade with smooth and lightly polished surfaces. The inner surface is smooth and the outer surface has been inset with cabochons with green or red coloured foil backings, many of which show signs of deterioration and loss of colour. The stones are of poor quality and many are cracked. The stones are generally unidentifiable but some of those with red backings are pale rhodolite or almandine garnets. The cabochons have been set in glue or resin that has then been covered in gold leaf which is showing signs of wear. Additional detail has been provided by infilling of channels with glue or resin which has also been gilded and show signs of wear. The impression is that these are all later replacements of original gold and gems.

This ring was originally in the Guthrie collection and was purchased for the sum of £3-10-0, when he sold 81 of his objects to The India Museum in 1868. It was subsequently transferred to The South Kensington Museum (later renamed The Victoria & Albert Museum) in 1879.

Charles Seton Guthrie was an important collector of eastern coins and Mughal Empire jade and rock crystal objects. He was the second son of Scottish parents, both of whom were from noble and landed families, and his father worked for the East India Company in Calcutta.
Guthrie most probably developed his interest in jade and rock crystal when he studied geology as a 17 year old cadet in 1825 in Addiscombe, and he joined the Bengal Engineers in 1828.
Through his family’s established connection with the Inglis and Lister families, he became acquainted with Harry Inglis and his Anglo-Indian wife Sophia (nee Lister). He may well have received gifts of objects that Harry had acquired as proceeds from his Indian military campaigns. Harry was the son and heir of George Inglis who owned Inglis & Co., a large Indian trading company.
During his time in India, Charles Guthrie enhanced his collections with acquisitions financed by his army pay and also income from properties in his late mother’s estate.
He subsequently retired at the honorary rank of Colonel in 1857, although he returned to England in 1855, at the same time as Harry and Sophia, due to having 2 years of accumulated leave.
Following Harry’s death in 1860, his embalmed body was returned to India, accompanied by Sophia and Charles, where it was interred in an above-ground tomb. Sophia inherited Harry’s vast estate, which almost certainly contained many fine jewels and Mughal objects. Sophia began living together with Charles in Calcutta, bearing him a son in 1862. Following a financially significant arrangement being agreed by Sophia with Charles, the two eventually married in 1863 with the family returning to England a short time thereafter.
Sophia died in 1866, with Charles being named as an executor with instruction to liquidate her un-itemised English estate which included “jewels, trinkets and shawls”.
Soon thereafter, in 1868, Guthrie sold part of his collection of jade and rock crystal objects to The India Museum and his large coin collection to a museum in Germany. Colonel Charles Seton Guthrie died in 1874 and the remainder of his collections was sold at auction, in accordance with the terms of his will, with many objects finding their way into other important collections and then subsequently to the museum.

This thumb ring was made within the Mughal empire. The body has been fashioned in white nephrite jade and may date to the middle of the 17th century. The stones are of poor quality and many are cracked. They are generally unidentifiable but some of those with red backings are pale rhodolite or almandine garnets. The cabochons have been set in glue or resin that has then been covered in gold leaf which is showing signs of wear. Additional detail has been provided by infilling of channels with glue or resin which has also been gilded and show signs of wear. The impression is that these are all later replacements of original gold and gems, not least because their poor quality does not correspond with the much more sophisticated workmanship in fashioning the nephrite. The ring was previously owned by the notable 19th century collector of Mughal jade and rock crystal objects, Colonel Charles Seton Guthrie, and bought from him by the Indian Museum, London, in 1868. His collection was transferred to the South Kensington Museum, later renamed the Victoria and Albert Museum, in 1879.

02523(IS)