Early 19th Century German Religious Ring

This piece dates to the first half of the 19th century and was made in Schwäbisch Gmünd, a small town in southern Germany which has produced silver objects and jewellery since the 14th century.

The bezel is a squared piece of glass which has had a gold religious design painted directly onto the back in reverse (verre églomisé), it is then placed over red foil or laquer. These reverse-painted glass rings are a speciality of the silversmiths of Schwäbisch Gmünd at the turn of the 19th century. Although some of these rare rings had sentimental subjects, such as hearts and flowers, the majority, as in this example, showed the Christian monogram ‘IHS’, standing for the first three letters of the name ‘Jesus’ in Greek. The squared glass bezel is bordered by filagree coils stamped from a gilded sheet of silver and fastened to the ring by a triangular tab at the top and bottom.

The pierced shoulders are each decorated with an applied silver flower with red and green pastes, this stylised regional flower design is known as a ‘Gmünder Blume’.

There are a handful of other surviving examples of these reverse-painted Schwäbisch Gmünd rings in the Germansiches Nationalmuseum and one almost identical version in the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Hallmark on the band of the number ‘12’ in a circular frame which indicates .750 silver (12/16 : 750 silver - from German ‘Lot’ system used in 18th and 19th centuries). A faded ‘unicorn head’ city mark of Schwäbisch Gmünd is also displayed

UK size U, US size 10 1/4, 4.84g silver, glass bezel measures 8mm in diameter, each paste stone