Enamelled gold ring, set with a sardonyx cameo of Elizabeth 1, England, 1630-45

Enamelled gold ring , set with a sardonyx cameo of Elizabeth I. The gold is decorated on the outside of the hoop and the underside of the bezel with leaves in translucent green champlevé enamel and foliage and flowers in gold and painted pale blue, yellow, green, and black enamel on a white ground. On the underside of the bezel a flower with six blue petals and yellow centre is placed in the middle of geometric radiating black peapod ornament (north, east, south and west). Four black and light green stylised leaves (NE, SE, SW, NW) lie inside an outer circle of six translucent green champlevé leaves. The decoration on the outside of the band includes similar green champlevé leaves, with more black peas, and one four petal blue flower on each side where the hoop meets the bezel. Mounted on the bezel is a sardonyx cameo of Elizabeth I facing proper right and wearing a ruff.

Presented from the Kenneth and Sallie Snowman Collection by Nicholas Snowman through Art Fund

The ring was in the collection of Mrs A. Loria sold at Sotheby's, 7 July 1953 (lot 84). It was illustrated in the Connoisseur in April 1957 (vol. CXXXIX, p. 128, no. 13) and exhibited at the M. H. De Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, in 1958, while in the Martin J. Desmoni collection. The exhibition catalogue (no. 61) gives the provenance as the A. Loria (Wertheimer) Collection. The Desmoni collection was sold at Sotheby's on 17 May 1960, when the ring, lot 40, was bought by Kenneth Snowman, from whom it was inherited by his son, Nicholas Snowman, the donor.

The ring was on loan to the Victoria and Albert Museum from 1975 until its donation in 2016.

The ruff worn in the portrait of Elizabeth suggests that the cameo cannot have been carved earlier than the 1570s. Charles Oman, 1971, p. 120, states that a date for the ring as a whole of 'about 1600' is the 'earliest possible' and this is the date given in the catalogue of Princely Magnificence, an exhibition at the V&A in 1980 (no. 44). Following the work of Peter Fuhring and Michèle Bimbenet-Privat on peapod ornament, there is, however, a case to be made that the peapod ornament takes the date to about 1614 onwards, and the painted enamel blue and yellow flowers on a white ground suggest a still later date in the 1630s or 1640s. The use of geometric black peas (circles) on a white ground combined with green champlevé leaves and some further leaves painted in enamel is similar to that found on a superb scent bottle in the Cheapside Hoard (Hazel Forsyth, London's Lost Jewels, London, 2013, pp. 94-5).

One or more workshops may have continued to make cameos of Elizabeth I, of which over fifty survive, more than for any contemporary European monarch, into the seventeenth century. However, if the ring can be dated to about 1630-45, it may be that the cameo was remounted into its present mount when fashion changed. This appears to have been the case with the Barbour Jewel (Museum no. 889-1894), which also has a cameo of Elizabeth I in an enamelled peapod setting. Elizabeth's reputation remained high long after death. The diarist John Evelyn recorded that Jerome Lanier, who had been appointed court musician in 1599, was still wearing a ring with her cameo portrait in 1654 (H. Forsyth, 2013, p. 182).

Elizabeth I gave her cameo portrait to a Swedish prince and the Tsar of Russia as diplomatic gifts. Wearing her portrait was a sign of her favour, and, for English wearers, of patriotism and loyalty. More than fifty Elizabeth I cameos, large and small, survive, more than for any contemporary European monarch, but precious metal mounts were always in danger of being recycled. Many of the cameos have lost their mounts. This example from the Kenneth and Sallie Snowman Collection is set in a vividly enamelled gold ring, decorated with both painted and champlevé enamel.

The style of Elizabeth's ruff shows that the cameo cannot have been carved earlier than the 1570s. It has been suggested that one or more workshops in London probably specialised in cutting cameos with her portrait during the late 16th century, and possibly the early 17th century. The ring is slightly later. The enamelling uses the black circles (peas) of peapod ornament, which is not known from engraved ornament prints until 1614 and continued in fashion for another thirty years. Painted enamelling using a wide range of colours, like the blue and yellow flowers on this ring, swept across Europe from Blois and Paris from about 1630, suggesting that the ring dates from about 1630-45.

The cameo is just the size of the fairy Queen Mab in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet who was 'no bigger than an agate-stone / On the forefinger of an alderman'.

M.6-2016