[Finger Ring Jewellery Design History ] – Beck, Reverend James.

A Manuscript Study on the History of Finger Rings / Finger Ring Jewellery Design written and researched by a scholarly Victorian clergyman in Suffolk.

[Suffolk], c.1872. 69, 11 pages. Hardcover / Half Morocco with gilt lettering to spine. Very good condition.

This [unpublished] Manuscript of an unfinished Work on [the History of] Finger – Rings by Reverend James Beck includes for example the following chapters:

- History of Finger Rings, (Eqyptians as true inventors of the Finger Ring), “according to Pliny the Greeks could not have known of them at the time of the Trojan Wars as no mention of them is made by Homer”,

- Beck dissects the meaning of Rings on certain fingers and explains why the “Ring Finger” was chosen as such:

″By some this finger is called the digitus medicus or medicinalis but its more correct name is annularis [Digitus anularis (today known as Ring Finger)]″

”…it was selected as annular finger, because it was less employed than any of the others & it was protected by the middle & little finger, hence as Atteus Capito says, it was better suited for preserving a Ring. Aulus Gellius mentions that the anatomists had discovered a vein which extended from the Heart to the fourth finger of the left hand & that on this account it was selected as the ring finger.″

The Manuscript makes further cases for Rings worn on the other fingers on the hand.

Includes sections on:

- Signet Rings / Signet Rings with Crystals and Enamels / Rebus / Letters and Coronets / Signet Heraldic

- Rings with angraved Cameos

- Sergeant at Law – Rings [The manuscript includes a larger section on Rings for Serjeants at Law]

- Rings of Investiture / Rings for Poet Laureates

- Xtian Rings [Christian Rings] / Iconographic Rings

- Rings for Prelates – Doctors of Divinity – Canons & Priests

- Rings for Consegrated Virgins / Rings used as Reliquaries [″The custom of putting Relics with Rings”]

- Rings as Gifts at Marriage of Servants / Ring Money

- Ad Memoriam Ring etc. etc.

- Finger Rings as Charms against Diseases (″annali virtuosi”)
[Beck lists here a story of a Charm – Ring against Epilepsy which was found at Kemp Weston in Somerset]

- Finger Rings as Talisman (″Crapaudine – Talismanie”)

- Rings with merchant Marks


[Attractive quarto bound in half deep red morocco over cloth covered boards with gilt lettering. Blue endpapers and paper stock throughout; circular stamp of ‘Assay Office Library Birmingham’ on flyleaf. A sequence of pasted letters (about 10 pages in all) precede the manuscript, starting with a letter to Beck from Thomas Clifford Allbutt (inventor of the Clinical Thermometer and co-founder with Sir William Osler of the History of Medicine Society), from the Royal Archaeological Institute about works held in their library on finger rings; a book order form from W H Smith; and a brief note from the former Bishop of Glasgow, Walter Trower. Beck’s manuscript has a typed title page and is dated ‘circa 1872’. His history of rings runs to 69 pages with an additional 11 pages of notes laid down on the blue paper stock. Beck proceeds from the ancient Egyptians through the classical world (occasionally adding illustrations), dealing with signet rings and rings of office such as the Serjeant of Law as well as the ring of the poets laureate. The final notes become increasingly fragmentary at the end].

James Beck (1819/20-1886) was educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, serving as Rector of Parham, Sussex, and subsequently of Bildeston, Suffolk; in 1867 he married Caroline Jeannette (Bignell) Walter. This volumes has the feeling of a family memento, probably bound up after Beck’s death to preserve his hard work on this fascinating subject. [Source of Description: Dr.Christian White].

• Keywords: Finger Rings (History and Design) · Goldschmied · Goldschmiede · History of Jewellery (Rings) · Jewellery · Jewellery Design · Magic · Magic – Rare · Manuscript · Manuscript / Autograph – Rare · Manuscript Art Rare · Secret Knowledge – Rare · Signet Ring · Signet Rings
• Inventory Number: 31740AB

EUR 3.800,--