Featured Antique Silver Dancing Putti Buckle

A while back, I picked up this gorgeous silver buckle. I can't find any hallmarks on it, but it tested as high grade 800+ silver. I found a bracelet with a nearly identical motif by the Parenti Sisters, but the bracelet bore their mark. I'm wondering if this could also be by them, or if this was a common theme.
https://www.rubylane.com/item/821311-555/Vintage-Sterling-Renaissance-Revival-Putti-Cuff

 

I don't know about in the realm of belt buckles, but in the artistic world at large scenes like this are pretty common, at least in some periods. Don't know if this was inspired by Albani's painting of Amorini dancing in celebration at the rape of Proserpina or if there is another artwork that's a more exact match.

 

Thank you; that's an intriguing etching. I didn't realize amorini was what they were called. I'll see if I could find more about the buckle using those terms.

 

It's one word for them. Putti is used more often in English; the Italian Albani called them amorini, little loves. They're wingless, but you can see all their cast off archery equipment in the foreground. Venus & Cupid are on a cloud at the upper right. You can just see Pluto making off with Proserpina (Greek: Hades/Persephone) on the left, headed into the distance. This is an engraving of Albani's painting.

 

Love the buckle, barn.

Maybe you'll never know, but I think it is more likely a common theme. Your buckle is 800+ silver, and the bracelet is sterling....

 

I did not look at the cuff bracelet earlier. Definitely the same scene, so there's a painting or relief out there somewhere it has been taken from.

 

Barn, I didn't want to give any more info on the rings destruction thread, I don't want to give the greedy destroyer any more info than he already has. But here is a page on historic rings found in the UK, it includes base metal signet rings:

https://finds.org.uk/counties/findsrecordingguides/finger-rings/

On the site is info on other jewellery types too. If you want to know more, just ask.

 

This is a similar scene buckle, without ID but it does say sterling. They are guessing it might be Peruzzi.

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/antique-sterling-silver-baroque-154048756

 

I'm not convinced that ring is any earlier than Renaissance. If it is iron, it could have become pretty encrusted in a few hundred years or less.

 

I don't know could be much older, I swear I see a brontosaurus on that ring.

 

I didn't spend hours & hours looking, but, including the PAS site, what I could readily find of Medieval rings, they don't look like that one, nor do Roman rings. It's only when I looked at Renaissance signet rings that I began to see any that were remotely that chunky. It's possible the horse, especially since it appears incomplete, was taken from a mold of a classical gem.

 

Agree, it is typical of ca 1500 signet rings, so Renaissance.

 

I am not sure Peruzzi ever did big pieces like that.
Peruzzi designed silver components, had them made in southern Italy, and then transported north to Florence. There the components were assembled into jewellery using stone beads, often sodalite. Assembling was done in their tiny workshop over the shop on the Ponte Vecchio, and still is.
If it is indeed Peruzzi, the scene has to be in Florence somewhere, since they were/are a Florentine souvenir jewellery shop, using Florentine themes.
They became famous for affordable Grand Tour jewellery.

 

@Bronwen , you'll find some base metal Renaissance signet rings under 10.3 'Medieval and post-Medieval finger-rings - Signet rings' on the PAS site.
Not exactly the same shape as the ruined ring, but that shape corresponds to Renaissance gold rings (= post-Medieval).

I posted it in reply to Barn's question about information on Medieval and post-Medieval jewellery, and there is some on the PAS site. He didn't ask for the type of the ruined ring specifically, and I certainly wasn't going to give the destroyer any more info.

 

I did look at those sections on the PAS site. It is the construction & heft of the ring that indicate to me it is post-Medieval, oldest. I have no issue with a base metal, although the little green spots now have me wondering if it is indeed brass or bronze under an incrustation that was making me think iron. Depending on the conditions of soil acidity, moisture, etc., it might not have taken 500 years to develop that degree of crustiness.

He does not mention how far down he had to dig, & what are the odds that your very first find with a metal detector would be this ring, unless he means first find that wasn't a bottle cap? Not sure his whole story holds up.

I still think the ring could be a lot more recent. I have a cameo ring that is built in a very similar way that is 20th century. The device on the detector ring looks like a weird mix of an impression taken from something else, embellished with deeply incised lines that don't make a lot of sense to me. I have a Georgian attempt at making a ring meant to look like an antiquity sitting on my desk right now. It was never buried, but if it had been, the brass would have become heavily oxidized pretty quickly. I have a lot of doubts about that ring.

 

Thank you for the resource!

 

I'm genuinely shocked that someone could do that to an amazing piece of jewellery. I couldn't study the 'after' photos as it was too depressing.
@Bronwen , who is the lady in the water?

 

Sorry, which lady in what water? I quickly lose track of things.

 

Lol, sorry, in the etching, there is a nymph trying to help Proserpina.Is she just a random nymph or part of the story? Fabulous etching beautifully done.

 

Ah, that lady in the water. She is the nymph Cyane. She tries to stop the abduction but cannot. Her grief is such that she dissolves & becomes part of the water she inhabits.

When Demeter/Ceres realizes her daughter is missing, she searches high & low, plunging the earth into cold & barrenness. She has no hope until she roams into Sicily, where Cyane, unable to speak or communicate in any other way, causes Persephone's girdle to float to the surface of her little river. Demeter now knows the rape took place there & really blights the island. Eventually she comes to a spring inhabited by the nymph Arethusa, who is able to tell her more specifically about where her daughter was taken. (This is Ovid's version.)