17th c Openwork Mourning Ring

A rare c. 1681 British mourning ring, solid 22k yellow gold, of a tubular hoop form pierced and engraved with continuous floral scrolls, the interior inscribed, “Remember M. W. 81”. Three posy rings of identical design, dated second half of the 17th c, are in the British Museum (1961,1202.64, 1961,1202.89, AF.1381). Another similar 17th c posy ring from the Dame Joan Evans collection is illustrated on pl. 60 of “British Rings 800-1914” by Charles Oman. The overlap between posy and mourning is not unusual for early rings: a surviving English will from as early as 1560, left by a woman named Dionysia Leveson, specified that engraved posy rings be left for her “lovinge frends” (p. 71, Oman). During the 17th century, floral designs were popular for rings of sentiment, the dividing line between mourning and sentimental sometimes separated only by the nature of the inscription. A diary from 1706 for instance mentions the commission of “ten flowered rings” for a mourning occasion (p. 72, Oman). Four types of flowers are found on the present ring, of mixed mourning and sentimental symbolism: a thistle for earthly sorrow, a mayflower blossom for Christ’s crown of thorns, a tulip for prosperity, and an aster for love (the herb of Venus). The inscription is of a format fairly typical for early mourning rings: a brief message followed by the testator’s initials and a year (which is often shortened to the latter two digits). The 1681 year inscription is useful in that it pegs a circa date of production for this design. The other four known examples, bearing posy inscriptions, are dated partially via guesswork; Oman dates this design as early as 1625-50, while the British Museum is left with a broad ‘second half of the 17th c’. Tubular rings with openwork construction were meant to hold hair, a feature not common until after the English Restoration (1660). In fact, the earliest known post-Restoration mourning ring in the V&A, dated 1661, is of an openwork design. An exquisite openwork enameled posy ring, sold by Bonhams in 2015 (lot 66 sale 22627), is also from this period. So few of these openwork rings survive today, partly due to their delicate construction, but also because production for the design type appears to have stopped by 1700. Some hair-bearing openwork rings were made during the early 19th century, but these examples are crude with simple rectangular or “s” shaped slashes.
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