Why do people wear rings on their fingers? For personal adornment, of course, but as often as not because of the social meanings they bear and communicate. Perhaps the world’s oldest form of jewelry, rings symbolize love, betrothal and marriage. They represent the wearer’s status, group affiliation and ancestry. They express religious, superstitious and moral beliefs. They may be trophies, memorials and, as in the case of the signet ring, a device for sealing and authenticating letters and documents.
In its most basic form as a small hoop made of anything that can be turned into a circle, the ring is the simplest, least encumbering kind of jewelry. Yet, as shown by “Treasures and Talismans: Rings From the Griffin Collection,”an absorbing exhibition at the Cloisters, a ring can be a miniature sculpture of marvelous complexity, skill and imagination.
Rings, including this Roman key ring, are the primary focus of the exhibition.CreditRichard Goodbody/The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Organized by C. Griffith Mann, the curator of the Cloisters, the exhibition features more than 60 rings made in Europe from late Ancient Roman times to the Renaissance, and it’s amplified by two dozen paintings and sculptural objects relating to ring making. All the rings are from a trove that was acquired over 30 years by a private collector and is on long-term loan to the Met. With rings and other objects involving many varieties of metalworking techniques, all kinds of gems and precious stones and many different social functions, the exhibition is an excellent introduction to a field of study that is both highly specialized and loaded with popular appeal.
One of the most impressive pieces is a Renaissance gimmel ring made in Germany in 1631. A gimmel ring has multiple hoops that fit together like puzzle pieces. This one, made of gold, has two circles that separate to reveal within each one’s bezel a little cavity occupied by a baby in one and a skeleton in the other. The hoops are molded in the form of snakes with additional, decorative elements painted in bright enamels. Together they share the inscription “Whom God has joined together, let no man tear asunder.”
A sixth-century architectural ring from France. CreditRichard Goodbody/The Metropolitan Museum of Art
At the less complicated end of the spectrum are British posy rings from the 16th and 17th centuries, the simplest of which are ornament-free gold bands with amorous inscriptions on the inside like “I Like My Choyse” and“Providence Divine Hath Made Thee Mine.”
(Incidentally, unless you have superhuman vision, you might consider bringing a magnifying glass. Otherwise, for the many details that elude the naked eye you can see every ring in bigger-than-life photographs on the Met’s website for the show.)
A gemstone ring. CreditRichard Goodbody/The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Some rings are as interesting for their back stories as for their immediate sumptuous presence. One of the collection’s rarest pieces, an inscribed sapphire ring, has a large blue stone engraved in Arabic — perhaps in the 10th century — with the name “Abdas-Salam ibn Ahmad.” Associated with chastity and purity, sapphires were quarried in Ceylon, Arabia and Persia. This one had traveled along trade routes to the West where, ultimately, a 14th-century Italian goldsmith set it into a vigorously sculptural gold ring inscribed, “For love you were made and for love I wear you.” There’s the seed of a Hollywood epic in that.