Stuart Crystal Mourning Ring with Memento Mori Devices. England, 18th century.

Gold Mourning Ring Set with Rock Crystal and Memento Mori Devices

England, dated 3 November 1747.

Ring size M 1/2 UK / 7 US / 53 EU.
Weight: 3.4 grams.
Rock crystal 0.7 × 0.5 cm.

This mid-eighteenth-century mourning ring is crafted in high-carat gold and centres on a faceted “Stuart crystal” enclosing a painted skull beneath the stone. The collet is flanked by pierced shoulders with finely modelled acanthus leaves, the openwork merging into a slender hoop articulated with small horizontal ridges. The exterior of the band is ornamented with alternating white-enamelled cartouches and C-scroll terminals, each cartouche bearing a different Memento Mori emblem: a winged hourglass, a coffin, a skull and crossed bones, and a crown rising above four stars. The interior is engraved with the date 3 Nov. 1747 and struck with the maker’s mark MC.

The use of a faceted rock crystal of this type reflects the long-lived tradition of the so-called “Stuart crystal”, a form popularised in the later seventeenth century and retained well into the Georgian period for mourning jewels and memorial keepsakes. Its clear, reflective surface was valued for protecting miniature motifs while amplifying their symbolic presence. Here, the combination of enamelled mortality symbols and the celestialised crown creates a concise visual programme centred on impermanence, remembrance, and spiritual hope. Gentle abrasion at the upper and lower edges of the hoop attests to long wear beside a companion ring, and a small area of old, discoloured restoration is visible on the enamel of the cartouche containing the crown.

Comparisons
This exact ring is published in Georgian Jewellery: 1714–1830, Ginny Redington Dawes and Olivia Collings, 26 September 2018, p. 156, illustrated among other mourning rings employing Stuart crystals and related iconography.