Long before the birth of the technology that brought us texts and emails, handwritten personal sentiments were entrusted to envelopes sealed with molten wax impressed with an image or symbol that served as both signature and secret message. The instrument used for this was a reverse-carved gemstone, or intaglio. The history of intaglio seals encompasses both grand and humble examples. Armorial seals, engraved with nobles’ coats of arms, authenticated state and other consequential documents. But there was also a democratic tradition of seals for the common man. In an age of widespread illiteracy, a person could dictate a letter to a scribe and then select an intaglio from the scribe’s collection with which to seal the envelope, giving the missive voice and personality through image. These seals spoke in symbols conveying humor, devotion, grief and, most enduringly, love.
These artful artifacts of a previous age find brilliant new life in the work of Seal & Scribe, which was founded by Shari Cohen in 2016. Cohen, who has degrees in the fine arts, worked for 30 years in international relief and development and started collecting intaglios to unwind after stressful assignments. Her firm’s ruby and French blue glass love intaglio cocktail ring is not only a jewel of astonishing beauty but also a dialogue between past and present. Its centerpiece is a rare antique round French blue glass intaglio carved with a butterfly perched on a heart and encircled by the old French phrase Tu Me Fixes, which, at the time when it was created, would have translated as “You are my obsession.”
In its previous life, the seal might have been used to close a love letter; now, set in gold and surrounded by rubies, it is something new: a piece of wearable art with contemporary presence. Seal & Scribe founder Shari Cohen had precisely this transformation in mind in crafting the ring. “I thought that [the intaglio] should be front and center,” she says, championing the seal as a gem in its own right, not a relic.
In this design, a traditionally masculine signet form is reimagined as graceful and sculptural. The 18-karat gold setting cradles the glass intaglio, while a cascade of rubies — varying in shade from pink to raspberry — pours down the shoulders.
What makes this cocktail ring so compelling is its duality: Intellectually, it evokes centuries of history, but aesthetically it reads as wholly modern. It’s not costume, not pastiche — it belongs to the here and now, as much a statement of contemporary style as an archeological fragment. In this way, it transcends tradition while honoring it.
That balance gives the piece a special power as a jewel to live with. It is perfect as an engagement ring for the unconventional romantic or as a gift to oneself — an extraordinary creation that will inevitably become an heirloom.
