17th c Memento Mori Death’s Head Skull Ring

A late 17th century death’s head memento mori mourning ring, bearing an unusually early inscription: M. R. obijt [obiit] 16 Maij [Maius] 1683 (latin, “M. R. died 16 May 1683”; note that during the 17-18th century, the second i was often stylized as a j, and that maij was a common period abbreviation for Maius, latin for the month May). The present ring is among the earliest examples of this particular design type. Of the ten black enameled death’s head rings in the British Museum collection, only one dates to the late 17th century (accession 1961,1202.385); the Victoria & Albert Museum also has one bearing a 1693 inscription, for William Sancroft, the Archbishop of Canterbury (accession M.158-1962). The 1693 Sancroft ring shares similarities to the present ring, in the execution of the death’s head skull (particularly the double rows of teeth), and in the carving workmanship of the floral scrollwork.

Death’s head skulls on mourning rings invite owners to contemplate the inevitability of death (memento mori, Latin for “remember that you must die”). The wing-like scrollwork flanking the skull signify death’s metamorphic power. The ‘May-flower” Hawthorn blossoms invoke the Passion of Christ; according to lore, the Crown of Thorns was fashioned from a Hawthorn branch. The Acanthus leaf scrolls represent heavenly garden and immortality; the cross-bones, the impermanence of life, stripped of the mortal flesh. The hour glass is a mnemonic for ‘tempus fugit’ (Latin, “time flies”), a reminder that “it escapes, irretrievable time”; when toppled to the side, it also represents a life terminated.

Memento mori rings with enameled death’s head skulls became popular after the English Reformation, during the latter half of the sixteenth century. However, the English Civil War (1642 – 1651) and Cromwellian dictatorship (Commonwealth of 1649 – 1660) ushered a twenty year period during which mourning rings fell out of fashion. Only after the Stuart restoration of 1660 did production resume for such rings, driven by robust demand for jewelry commemorating the 1649 execution of Charles I, and in general reflecting the cult of melancholia that pervaded the era’s religious and cultural zeitgeist. In his 1651 treatise, Leviathan, Thomas Hobbs had famously written that the “life of man” is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”. Indeed, English history of the 17th century was a ‘saeculum horribilis’ pockmarked by catastrophe: a bloody civil war, the execution of a monarch, a military dictatorship, the Great Plague of 1665, and the 1666 Great Fire of London. The stylized death motifs seen on the present ring and its related types can be found as early as 1665, on a ‘Bill of Mortality’ issued by parish clerks to record weekly mortality statistics during the Great Plague of London. However, despite its grim outlook, the post-1660 era also saw the true popularization and commercialization of mourning rings, giving birth to a proto-industry characterized by steady consumer demand, dedicated jewelers, and somewhat standardized designs. According to V&A curator and jewelry historian Charles Oman, post-1660 inventories, diaries, and wills show a marked transformation in the social significance of bequeathing mourning rings: what was once a private gesture of remembrance limited to a close circle of friends and relations had now widened to a rather public effort to bolster social standing. The gifting of mourning rings to a larger circle of acquaintances was seen as a status symbol; it was often in the interest of the families of the deceased to commission as many mourning rings as possible without strict vetting of the recipients. This practice would explain the surprising numbers of nearly-identical plain gold bands with hastily incised “pumpkin head” skulls that survive from the era, though well-executed rings with full decoration in enamel are quite rare and were likely reserved for persons of higher socioeconomic standing.
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