FAMOUS JEWELS TO BE SOLD

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22244, 8 November 1937, Page 13

FAMOUS JEWELS TO BE SOLD

♦ FRENCH COLLECTION SENT TO LONDON (raoii oca own courisi'ondesi.) LONDON, October 5. Another collection of treasures has been sent from Paris to London for dispersal at Sotheby's on NovemIber 9-12. It is probably the finest array of rings formed by a private collector, with the exception of the famous collection bequeathed, with other treasures, to the British Museum, in 1897, by Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks, who had been keeper of the Department of Antiquities. The collection to be sold belonged to the late antiquary, Edouard Guilhou, and numbers more than 800 remarkable examples, ranging from the Egypt of the Pharaohs to the France of the First Empire. A real work of art is a gold ring with a striking portrait carved in white stone, set in a raised bezel, of Charles the Bold's grandfather, John the Fearless,. Duke of Burgundy, who was murdered on Montereau Bridge in 1419.

It is stated that this ring was "found" in the duke's tomb in 1792. There is a section of magical and ecclesiastical rings, and another of love and "fede" circlets. The Merovingian section is especially rich, and one is claimed to be the ring of the seventh century St. Gulfetrude. Another possibly belonged to Queen Bertilde, one of the wives of "le bon roi Dagobert," while a third may have been worn by the Lombard Queen Gundoberga. The Black Prince's ring, too, may be in this collection. A portrait incised on a ruby bears a resemblance to him. Among the memento mori rings is one with a skull in white enamel, with diamond eyes.