A selling exhibition of antique rings lends academic heft to the fluff of ornament
The more powerful men were links of london, or wanted to be, the more fabulous were the jewels they sought. In 1742, for instance, August III, Elector of Saxony (and King of Poland) paid more for what was (and remains) the world’s biggest sea-green diamond than he spent building Dresden’s Frauenkirche, then Europe’s largest Protestant church Links of London Charms. Nineteenth-century robber barons (and assorted Rothschilds) included Renaissance gold and jewels in their art collections.
Even more surprising perhaps is that the most celebrated 20th-century collections of finger rings–the smallest, most personal of jewels–almost all belonged to men, among them Ernest Guilhou, Ralph Hariri and Melvin Gutman. Some of these collections were then broken up, giving birth to new ones. At Sotheby’s Gutman sale in 1970, for instance, Benjamin Zucker Links of London Necklaces, now a New York gem dealer, saw some Jewish marriage rings and got hooked. Today his collection of 126 antique rings is on loan to Baltimore’s Walters Art Museum.
For those who have dismissed jewellery as fluffy, girlie stuff of no possible relevance to serious art lovers, this is an opportune moment to reconsider. On May 12th a ten-day selling exhibition of important antique rings opens at Wartski, an esteemed London jeweller. As it happens, “Roman to Renaissance” is an exception that proves the rule set out above Links of London Bracelets. These 35 rings were collected by Sandra Hindman, medievalist and medieval art dealer, and Professor Emerita of Art History at Northwestern University.