An important and extremely rare sapphire “Hololith” ring

Carved from a single block of sapphire, engraved on the bezel with an intaglio portrait of Faustina the Elder – wife of Emperor Antoninus Pius.

Lined with enamelled gold in the late 16th or early 17th century

33x33mm, the bezel 11x21 mm, inside diameter 17.5 mm (UK/French finger size: O ½ / 56).

PROVENANCE ;

This ring was acquired by Thomas Howard (1586-1646), 21st Earl of Arundel, likely from the Dukes of Mantua. Inherited by his wife Alatheia Talbot (1585-1654) then by descent until gifted in 1762 on the occasion of the marriage of Lord Charles Spencer, by whom given to his elder brother George Spencer (1739-1817), 4th Duke of Marlborough.

The Gonzaga Dukes of Mantua’s collection of paintings were acquired by King Charles I in 1627, but their collection of engraved gems was declined by the king in 1637 and bought instead, via the dealer Daniel Nys (1572-1647) and the agent William Petty (1587-1639), by the Earl of Arundel who acquired over 250 items en-bloc.

Arundel had several non-Gonzaga gems too, as Sir John Boardman stated in a conference: “Lord Arundel started collecting in the early 17th century. He collected largely thanks to the wealth of his wife, and mainly in the eastern Mediterranean, Turkey and Greece, then in Italy. His first gems were, one of them, a gift from his friend Prince Henry, which had come from an old Dutch collection*. And another from his friend the artist Rubens”

A list and valuation of the Arundel gems was compiled on the 2nd October 1690. This ring was valued at £30, of the 128 gems listed only eleven were valued at over £20

The ring reappeared at Sotheby’s, London, 16th December 1971, lot 53, as Italian 16th century but without provenance information, and sold for £750 to “Jones” (which suggests an anonymous cash buyer). Interestingly, lot 70 in that same sale was Jahangir’s emerald wine cup, which is now in the al-Thani collection. This sold then for £2,300, and was sold again at Christie’s in September 2003 for just under £1.8m

THIS RING IS PUBLISHED IN:

Manuscript catalogue (in French), dated 2 October 1690 (Northamptonshire Record Office (SS4033) and copied in 1782, p. 2 described as

“Faustina. En Anneau tout de Saphire”

valued at £30.00.00 (one of the highest estimates in the collection which totalled £4,368)

Manuscript catalogue (in Latin), circa 1725-1730, theca quinta, no. 15, copied by Andrew Fountaine and published as The Arundel Cabinet, London 1731, case E no 15

“Caput Caesoniae in saffiro orientale rarissima per la grandezza, perche essendo questo tagliato, in forma d’un vasto anello, ha due onice palmare di diametro con un cerchio d’oro el di dentro”

Charles W. King, “Notices of collections of glyptic art”, in Archaeological Journal, vol. 19, 1862, pp. 9-23 and 99-113: pp. 101-102, no. 360

“An entire ring with polygonal shank, cut out of one huge pale sapphire, and lined with a massive flat hoop of gold, enameled on the edge. An extraordinary example of labour in so hard a substance, and in the opinion of an eminent mineralogist, such as could only have been done in India. On the signet part, a modern Italian hand has, cut with much elegance a head of Faustina the Elder. There can be little doubt that the original device, a Persian legend, has been ground out to make way for this intaglio, a fraudulent substitution intended to convert the whole into a unique relic of antiquity”.

Mervyn Herbert Nevil Story-Maskelyne, The Marlborough Gems being a collection of works in cameo and intaglio formed by George, third Duke of Marlborough, privately printed 1870, p. 78, no. 465

“A sapphire ring engraved with the intaglio portrait of Faustina the elder to the left. The work does not look antique, and the likeness is not particularly good. The ring is evidently of oriental, probably Persian, workmanship, the head of the empress having taken the place of an inscription. An Arundel gem (Cat. Thec. E, No. 15)”.

Charles William King, Antique Gems and Rings, London 1872, pp. 372-373 “There is indeed, in the Marlborough cabinet, an extraordinary specimen of the class, which lays claim to a higher antiquity, a thumb-ring cut out of one entire and perfect sapphire – rather a pale one it is true – and lined with a thick gold hoop for greater security. On the signet part stands now engraved a fine head of Faustina Mater, which, however, is manifestly the work of a modern hand, and has superseded the original Arabic seal-inscription”.

George Frederick Kunz, Rings for the finger from the earliest known times to the present. With full descriptions of the origin, early making, materials, the archaeology, history, for affection, for love, for engagement, for wedding, commemorative, mourning, etc., Philadelphia and London 1917, p. 99

“The famous Marlborough collection of gems includes a thumb ring entirely of sapphire. To give this stone ring the necessary resisting power, it has been lined with a thick hoop of gold. The engraving it bears, a head of the Elder Faustina, the wife of Antoninus Pius (86-161 A.D.), is believed to replace an original Arabic inscription that fitted this ring for use as a seal”.

John Boardman, Diana Scarisbrick et al., The Marlborough gems, Oxford 2009, p. 119, cat no. 227

“Sapphire ring, octagonal, thought to be of oriental type, the intaglio taking the place of an inscription which has been ‘ground out’; ‘lined with gold, enamelled on the edge’, 20 x 9. Drawing of the ring in Story-Maskelyne’s notes (‘gold ring round inside’). The bust of a woman. Probably a version of the Faustina portrait. For the hair compare Reinach, pl. 14.26.7 (Medici). Renaissance”

Notes
* - The “Old Dutch collection” was that of Abraham Gorlaeus (ca. 1549 – 1608), a Dutch antiquary of Flemish origin. He published the first edition of his gem cabinet in 1601.The year following his death in 1608 the collection was sold to Henry, Prince of Wales, then, after his death, it passed to his brother, who became became King Charles I.

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