Jewellery, Watches and Objects of Vertu

A post-medieval gold posy ring, circa 1650-1730, of heavy gauge, the hoop of D-shaped cross section, engraved to the flat interior with two line inscription in italic script reading ‘The eye doth finde the hart doth chuse / Faith doth binde and death doth loose’, maker’s mark probably ‘DA’ within shield-shaped punch, ring size R-S. £2,000-£3,000

The ring is recorded on the Portable Antiquities Scheme database, Ref: DOR-364BBF, and has subsequently been disclaimed as Treasure.

Ciorstaidh Hayward Trevarthen notes in the PAS Report:
“This is a somewhat unusual example of a posy ring in having a two-line inscription rather than the more commonly seen single line. For other examples of such double-line inscriptions see BM 1961,1202.93 (Salisbury, circa 1595-1633) and BM 1961,1202.28 (16th or 17th century). In its heaviness, BM 1961,1202.93 resembles 2020 T718. The inscription is not found on any parallels in the British Museum.

A variant of this inscription [The eye doth find, the heart doth choose, and love doth bind till death doth loose] was engraved in a ring made for Thomas Whythorn, court musician in 1569 (David Cressy: Birth, Marriage, and Death: Ritual, Religion and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England, 1997, 343) demonstrating that long inscriptions do not tie rings to later periods”.

Joan Evans (1931, 35) records another variant [Eye doth find, heart doth chose, Faith doth bind, death doth lose] in Edward Brooke’s commonplace book of 1605.

“The maker’s mark appears to be the initials DA in a shield. There are several London makers with these initials recorded in Jackson (1905) starting in 1689-90 (ibid p. 141) through to 1724-25 (ibid p. 168), but the later examples are more elaborate than this one. The closest in terms of the shape of the shield and minimal other ornament is that of Josiah Daniel recorded for 1714 – 15 (ibid p.159), but other possibilities are Isaac Dalton in 1711-12 (ibid p.157) Andrew Dalton in 1709 – 10 (ibid p.155) and an unnamed maker in 1689-90 (ibid p.141)”.

Literature:
Cressy, David, Birth, Marriage, and Death: Ritual, Religion and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England, (1997)
Evans, J[ohn], Posy Rings: a Friday evening discourse at the Royal Institution (March 25 1892)
Evans, J[oan], English Posies and Posy Rings (London 1931)
Jackson, C.J., English Goldsmiths and Their Marks (London 1905)
Oman, C., British Rings 800-1914 (London 1974)