Ring

Gold finger ring set with an antique carnelian intaglio, depicting a robed figure holding a palm branch. The ring is inscribed inside the hoop 'Mary Berry died Nov 20th 1852'. The ring is said to have belonged to Horace Walpole who gave it to his friend and neighbour at Twickenham, Miss Berry. Mary Berry was the elder of the two beautiful and accomplished sisters whom he first met in 1788, and with whom he was to fall helplessly in love in the last years of his life. At his death Walpole left the two sisters a life interest in Little Strawberry Hill and a small income. While professing an equal affection for both sisters, the seventy-year old Walpole was eventually forced to recognise the nature of his feelings for Mary; the ring must have been a tacit admission of her special significance to him. Lady Granville, later Duchess of Sutherland, was a particular friend of the Miss Berrys in their later London years. The ring came to her at Mary Berry's death, aged 89 years. Eventually it passed to her son, Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower, a collector and amateur sculptor, and was given by him to the donor.