First Impression

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“A Large Signet Ring On His Little Finger”

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When Oscar Wilde arrived in America, at the beginning of 1882, the press came out to meet him on his ship the SS Arizona. A principal aim was to satisfy the public’s anticipation about what this aesthetic curiosity actually looked like.

A reporter from the New York Sun described Oscar’s appearance:

He stood at least six feet two inches tall, with broad shoulders and erect carriage. He wore a long ulster, lined with two kinds of fur, patent leather boots, and had a small round fur cap set squarely on his head. He stood at ease with one hand thrust into his ulster pocket and the other, with a large signet ring on its little finger…¹

In retrospect, we might suspect of Oscar that if something as subtle as his signet ring managed to form part of the journalist’s first impression, it was not the last impression the ring was going to make.

The Sarony Photographs

Signet, or seal, rings have been used historically to emboss clay, paper, or other media, and most typically to personalize melted wax when sealing correspondence—and, in his first few weeks in America, Wilde gave us examples of all of these uses.

We first see evidence of Wilde’s signet ring in the Sarony photographs taken early in January, 1882.

Throughout the series of photographs, the ring changes hands and moves to different fingers. For instance, in these examples, the ring can be seen variously on the index finger of Wilde’s left hand; on the third finger of his right hand; and then back on the little finger of his left hand:

As the ring would not fit naturally on all fingers, one suspects its judicial placement was for greater prominence during the sittings. Such a consideration might normally be attributed to the photographer, Napoleon Sarony, who was known for the artistic arrangement of the mise en scène in his work. However, we begin to suspect that the ring had some significance to Wilde himself.

The idea of significance begins with Martin Birnbaum who in his 1914 account of Wildean episodes relates that the seal ring was, “given to Wilde by his Mother.”² And knowing how much Oscar revered Lady Wilde, it is no surprise that Birnbaum also records that Wilde “dreaded catastrophe” when the ring was later found to be broken.³

On the Face of it

Another indication of what the ring may have meant to Wilde can be inferred from the design on its bezel face.

To discover what the design was we cannot rely solely on the Sarony photographs, because the details aren’t clear enough; even The Publishers’ Weekly at the time records only that the ring was a medallion “imitating an antique seal”—which doesn’t get us much further.

Barbara Belford, however, is more helpful, describing it as “the profile of a young boy in ringlets”.⁴ For who this young boy might be we need to delve a little further—in fact, by returning to a contemporary source.

A Cincinnati reporter noted in 1882, when interviewing Wilde, that he “wore no jewelry but a very large seal ring – a fine antique intaglio of Mercury cut in amethyst. With this he seals his ‘billet doux.”⁵

It is doubtful whether the reporter would have been able to recognize a random Roman deity on Wilde’s ring without some prompting from its owner, and therefore the identification of Mercury is likely to have come from Wilde himself.

Thus taking the attribution of Mercury as reliable, let us see if we can underscore it with some relevance. Considering Wilde’s twin missions in America, both commercial and artistic, we can see how Oscar, or any well-wisher such as his Mother, might have appropriately chosen the head of Mercury as a charm, for we are told:

“He is the god of financial gain, commerce, eloquence, messages, communication (including divination), travelers, boundaries, luck, trickery…he also serves as the “messenger of the gods”. (Wikipedia)

Given all this, it’s time we took a closer look at the divine thing.

There are two examples in which Wilde not only reveals the design, but also associates himself with it by using it as a signature device.

The kelly bas-relief

At the start of Wilde’s lecture tour of North America, his touring manager, Colonel W. F. Morse, required a reproducible image of Wilde for publicity purposes. He therefore commissioned a sketch of him to be made. The artist chosen was James Edward Kelly (1855—1933), a New Yorker of Irish descent.

Kelly’s drawing depicts Wilde, later famous for his children’s stories, seated in profile perhaps as storyteller, alongside an unidentified child.⁶

Based on the sketch, Kelly also created a clay bas-relief (from which a bronze plaque was made).

At some point during the sculpting process, Wilde impressed his signet ring into the corner of the clay mold, perhaps as his personal seal of approval.

The ring design can be seen in the photograph of the relief, above, and the detail of it is enlarged at the top of this page.⁷

Rose leaf and apple leaf

There is a second example of how Wilde was making an impression in America with his signet ring.

While he was in Philadelphia at the beginning of the tour, Oscar arranged with J. M. Stoddart to have a book of poems published for Rennell Rodd, an old Oxford friend (and fellow Newdigate prize recipient) to be called Rose Leaf and Apple Leaf.

But Rodd wasn’t pleased. He fell out of harmony with Wilde over his selection of poems for the book, and questions of taste over its production. Rodd also thought that Oscar’s unsolicited dedication (to himself!) was “too effusive”, never mind his placing Rodd (four years his junior) as a something of a disciple in a piece styled L’Envoi which Wilde added as a lengthy introduction.

After all that, one wonders if Rodd had the inclination, or even the knowledge, to realize a final stamp act: that it was Wilde’s own signet ring impressed in red wax that was printed as an ornament on the title page of his book.⁸

© John Cooper, 2023.

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Footnotes:

1. “Oscar Wilde in New York,” The Sun (New York, NY), 3 Jan. 1882, 12 ↩︎
2. Martin Birnbaum: Oscar Wilde: Fragments and Memories, James F. Drake, New York, 1914 (p. 18). Elkin Matthews, London, 1920, (p. 25). Coincidentally, this book uses as it frontispiece the Kelly Sketch which was the basis for Kelly’s bas-relief.
   * Birnbaum cites no sources, but the internal evidence is that he consulted the works of Wilde early biographers and friends, possibly also in person. ↩︎
3. Ibid [Drake,] p. 20. Ibid [Matthews], p, 27. ↩︎
4. Barbara Belford: Oscar Wilde: A Certain Genius, p. 112. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2000. ↩︎
5. ‘With Mr. Oscar Wilde’, Cincinnati Daily Gazette, February 21, 1882, 10, reproduced in Marland” Oscar Wilde: The Complete Interviews, Vol. 1 p. 187–93, 188. ↩︎
6. For more see The Kelly Sketch at my website. ↩︎
7. Smithsonian American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery
   Photograph by by A. B. Bogart. Image number SSC S0001367. ↩︎
8. The matter led to an angry parting of company and the two never met again. However, after Wilde’s tragic end, Rodd was more forgiving. He wrote of Oscar:
   “He was generous and reckless, with no thought for the morrow and indeed indolent until a desperate obligation to work came home to him. I would like this side of his nature to be known, and that some kindly thought should go back to the tragic life of which we hoped so much, the more so because we quarrelled, and when there is a quarrel probably neither of the parties to it is wholly in the right.”
   Sir James Rennell Rodd: Social and Diplomatic Memories, 1884–1893 (London: Edward Arnold, 1922) pp. 22–5. ↩︎