Victorian spinel five stone ring, English, circa 1890.

This ring is in excellent condition.

Spinels can come in a myriad of colours, including red, pink, orange, blue, violet, green, and black. The finest spinels exhibit a bright and brilliant red, which can be similar in appearance to ruby, leading to historical confusion between the two gemstones. It was only in 1783 that mineralogist Jean Baptiste Louis Rome de Lisle developed a test to differentiate between ruby and spinel.

One of the most famous examples of a spinel confused as a ruby is the so-called ‘Black Prince’s ruby’ found on the British Imperial state crown. This historic crimson-red gem is a semi-polished octahedral cabochon with three faces. It first appeared in the historical records of 14th century Spain, and was owned by a succession of Moorish and Spanish Kings before Edward, Prince of Wales, the “Black Prince” received the stone in 1367 as payment for a battle victory. The gem has since gone on to become one of the centrepieces of the British Corwn Jewels.

The spinel in this piece have been perfectly matched, and is particularly rare as matching coloured gemstones in this way requires an exceptional eye.