Late 18th c Portuguese Minas Novas Cluster Ring

A c. 1770-80 Portuguese minas novas cluster ring, set with 35 old scissor-cut quartzes in an octagonal concentric formation, the center stone color foiled in a wistful light blue. The silver-topped 18k gold setting exhibits typical late 18th c Portuguese workmanship: the large ring head features a posterior that’s both convex and concave shaped to accommodate the natural curvature of the finger; there are tendrils of fine foliate engraving along the ring back perimeter; the flaring shoulders are trifurcated like a fleur-de-lis and feature a silver centerpiece. Two late 18th c cluster rings with very similar features (engraved back and trifurcated shoulders included) are in the Koch collection (no. 956 & 957, “Rings: The Alice and Louis Koch Collection” by Anna Beatriz Chadour). Another cluster ring with pale blue foiled minas novas is illustrated on p.99 of “A Joalharia em Portugal” by Gonçalo de Vasconcelos e Sousa. Two cluster rings of this type, set with different minas novas gems, can be found on p. 78 of “Five Centuries of Jewelry: National Museum of Ancient Art, Lisbon” by Leonor d’Orey. Rings of the present design type belong to a broader group of foiled jewels crafted in the late Rococo French taste. Portuguese jewelry made after 1750 show a marked departure from regionalism and a hewing to “international” styles set by the French court. Between 1777-92, the jewel keeper of Queen Maria I relied on correspondence with the Portuguese ambassador in Paris to supply the Lisbon court with Parisian sketches of the latest jewelry trends. Improvements in lighting meant that the 18th century was a great age of nighttime social gatherings; Rococo jewels were designed for maximized scintillation under flickering candlelight. Diamond-substitutes in foiled paste glass were favored for their seemingly limitless size and color applications. The present ring would have been based on a French prototype set with paste glass (like the one illustrated on p. 58 of “Brilliant Impressions” by Diana Scarisbrick). However, a bountiful gemstone yield from Portuguese-controlled mines in Minas Gerais, Brazil meant that Rococo jewelry made elsewhere in Europe with paste were almost always set with ‘minas novas’ gems in Portugal. The influence of black-dot paste can be seen in the foiling style of the present ring: a small black dot is painted in the center of each gemstone foil to imitate the deep culets of old mine cut diamonds, a foiling technique commonly seen on late 18th c European paste jewelry.
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