RUBY AND DIAMOND RING, MOSHEH OVED, 1940S

Designed as two entwined swans, their eyes set with rose diamonds and circular-cut rubies respectively,
unsigned, size M.


Mosheh Oved, 1885-1958, was a dealer in cameos and antique jewellery, and the founder of Cameo Corner in Museum Street. A immigrant watchmaker from Russian Poland, whose real name was Edward Good, Oved came to England when he was about 17, where he became involved in the jewellery trade at which time he adopted the name Mosheh Oved. He was a well-known figure in London's Jewish community and a founder member of the Ben Uri Jewish Art Society. He was a nervous man who had many phobias. To steady his hands his partner suggested that he work with modelling wax. The result was a series of zoomorphic rings.  The most iconic examples included a new-born lamb or a kid, their unsteady legs forming the shank. He was also interested in sculpture, and was a friend of Jacob Epstein, whose work he collected. His wife, Sah Oved, was a distinguished jewellery designer of the interwar and early post-war years.
For his animal rings, see: Peter Hinks, Twentieth-Century British Jewellery 1900-1980, London and Boston 1983, p. 96; Elsa Zorn Karlin, Jewelry and Metalwork in the Arts and Crafts Tradition, Atglen, Pennsylvania 1993, p. 86.