Description
This 19th century ring is formed by a snake that coils twice around the finger. Its head and tail meet on the ring head. The snake’s head with sapphire is worked out thickened and overlays its own tail.
Its elegant body has always made the snake a particularly pictorial motif for jewelry, even though it was feared for its dangerous venom. In the Ancient Near Eastern and Christian Western contexts, therefore, the snake has always been regarded as an ambivalent yet divine creature, leading to deeper levels of meaning – to the capacity for knowledge, but at the same time to theological, moral or philosophical truths. In Ancient Greece, in turn, it was considered the protector of the underworld; its shedding of skin stood for rebirth, eternal youth and immortality. Thus the snake became the symbolic animal of the god of medicine, the art of healing, Aesculapius, and the brazen serpent the symbol of healing.
Depending on the culture, the motif of the ouroboros, the snake biting its own tail and forming a closed circle with its body, symbolizes the cycle of life, transformation and renewal.
