‘Her rings were her first teachers’ – a tribute to Diana Scarisbrick (1928–2024)

Diana Scarisbrick died in her sleep on December 30, 2024, at the age of 96. She was a widely admired and prodigious cultural historian of jewellery. If she did not invent the field, she certainly greatly enriched and enlarged it. She wrote some hundred articles and 50 books; among them Historic Rings: Four Thousand Years of Craftmanship (2004), Portrait Jewels: Opulence and Intimacy from the Medici to the Romanovs (2011) and The Beverley Collection of Gems at Alnwick Castle (2016). Not being an academic, she had the freedom to roam wherever her interest, enthusiasm and opportunities led. In her books and articles, Scarisbrick wrote about the makers of jewellery, the men and women who wore and gave it, what it signified, where and how it was worn. Her research and her imagination enabled her to take the reader to visit them in settings where they were first worn: we sip champagne as diamonds, emeralds and rubies dazzle in the candlelight. When the time and place is 18th-century France, ‘her period’, the presence of Diana Scarisbrick is most strongly felt.

Diana Mary lnnes Wood was born in 1928 Australia to English parents who returned to Britain while she was still a child. After graduating from Oxford with a degree in modern history in 1950, she had a number of jobs, including translating at SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe) in Fontainebleau. Back in England she met Peter Scarisbrick; they married in 1955. ‘I thought, “This is wonderful. I will never have to work again!”’ Diana recalled. This was disarmingly pre-emptive, and true: Peter had independent means.

Several years passed before one day, riding in a taxi, she was attracted to the rings her companion was wearing. She learned that they dated to the Renaissance and had been bought from the Mayfair dealers in antique jewellery S. J. Phillips, then run by Martin Norton. Soon after, she made her first purchase from the firm. As her collection grew, so did her friendship with the Nortons, first Martin and later his sons Nicolas and Jonathan, who remain there today. Their business relationships entwined and they became like family. In his last years, she and Martin Norton played Scrabble together every Sunday. In her last years, his sons took turns visiting her every week. Not long before she died she told them, ‘You are my brothers.’

Her ‘Damascus moment’, as Scarisbrick called it, came in the mid ’70s during a visit from a friend who worked at the Ashmolean. He knew about her ring collecting and mentioned that the museum’s ring collection had never been catalogued. ‘You should do it,’ he said. She demurred: she didn’t want a job; she was having too much fun with race meetings, smoking ‘like a chimney, drinking a lot and going to parties’. And yet… she began buying books. Next came a bookcase (one of her pals laughed: ‘I’ve never even seen you reading a book!’). Six months after the idea was first put to her, Scarisbrick visited the Ashmolean. The ring collection was brought out to her. She took a good, long look. ‘I can do something with that,’ she thought. Her catalogue, co-authored with Martin Henig, was eventually published in 2003.

Diana Scarisbrick photographed in 2018 by Carla van de Puttelaar. National Portrait Gallery, London. © Carla van Puttelaar

Jewellery in Britain, 1066-1837: a Documentary, Social, Literary and Artistic Survey (1994) was the first book she wrote. It took her 10 years, ‘and another 10 to find a publisher’. It might have remained a manuscript had Scarisbrick not shown it to the publisher André Deutsch. Not that he bought it: instead, he recommended that she extract the material about antique jewellery still in the possession of the grand families for whom it was made and turn that into a book first. This became Ancestral Jewels, published by André Deutsch in 1989. Jewellery in Britain appeared five years later.

There were many more books, of course, along with the cataloguing of important collections of antique rings, exhibition curating and catalogues, advising collectors. Her productivity is undeniable, despite the obstacles put in her path: and there were plenty. With important exceptions – first and always, John Boardman – academics were not welcoming. ‘Because you are a woman?’ I once asked her. ‘Oh no,’ she answered. ‘They were the worst.’ Some of the resulting feuds retain their scorching heat. Those unhappy experiences led Diana to be kind and generous with her time and knowledge when approached by other civilians who loved antique jewels and wanted to learn how better to look at and learn from them. (I should know: I was one of them). But she could also be acerbic. A devout Catholic, she had sharp words when religion was ill used in marketing antique jewels. As she saw it, the entire genre of convent jewels (allegedly given by 18th-century Spanish novices when entering a convent) was contrived: ‘I have never seen so much rubbish as what has a monastic or convent provenance,’ she said.

Scarisbrick was elected a member of the Society of Antiquaries in 1987. Her research always went deep; her approach to her subject was direct and personal. Her work benefited from her own experiences as a ring collector. Her rings were her first teachers: ‘Look at the jewel,’ she would say. ‘It should speak to you. You should ask the questions and it should give you the answers.’

Paula Weideger is an author and journalist. She is currently working on a book about her adventures in the land of antique jewels.