Trapiche Emerald Ring: Reverend Chauncy Hare Townshend
/I was haunting the archives of the V&A and came across this beautiful little trapiche emerald and gold ring.
This ring is from the 1800’s and was bequeathed to the V&A by the Reverend Chauncy Hare Townshend, a cleric and poet.
Chauncy Hare Townsend was born on 20 April 1798, and changed the spelling of his surname to Townshend in1828. He was educated at Eton and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and published his first collection of poetry in 1821. In 1840, at the house of the mesmerist Dr John Elliston, he befriended Charles Dickens, who later served as his literary executor. At the time of his death, Townshend owned the manuscript of Great Expectations.
On account of his poor constitution, Townsend lived abroad for long periods of time. He died in London on 25 February 1868. Townshend left his library to the Wisbech and Fenland Museum; his bequest to the South Kensington Museum comprised 186 oil paintings and 177 watercolour drawings, 832 volumes, 390 drawings, 1,815 prints, and gems, precious stones, cameos and intaglios. I love a piece with a good history don’t you?
*The name trapiche comes from trapiche (de azúcar), “of sugar.” Trapiche emeralds have a spoke like structure that approximates the look of the grinding wheel used to process sugarcane in the region of Colombia, South America where they are most often found.*
