c. 1780s Georgian Sheaf of Wheat Ring

A pretty late 18th c Georgian sentimental ring, the ring face decorated with miniature hairwork stylized as a sheaf of wheat bound by pave diamonds, all against a ground of opaline glass beneath a dome of quartz crystal, surrounded by a halo of polychrome guilloche enamel. Despite the fantastical embellishments, the ring’s essential form retains a neoclassical elegance defined by minimalism of shape and clarity of lines: the smooth circular ring head connects with a knifed shank commonly seen on English rings of the 1780-90s. A Georgian stick pin featuring very similar sheaf of wheat hairwork is in the Britism Museum collection (accession no 1978,1002.84). In the context of sentimentalism, wheat symbolizes fertility and love and charity, its meaning grounded in the abundance of a harvest and by biblical passages such Psalm 65:13— ““The fields are covered with sheep; the valleys are full of wheat. Everything shouts and sings for joy”. The act of preserving or exchanging hair was regarded with symbolic reverence throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Bodies perish, and yet hair does not decay; hairwork jewels were thus worn by both men and women as sentimental momentos, tokens of love, and material representations of key familial or romantic relationships. The popularity of hairwork jewelry, both mourning and sentimental, was of such an extent that pattern manuals were published and professional artisans specializing in hairwork completed commissions from clients.
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