The miniature in this Georgian mourning ring depicts a young sapling bent by a gardener’s hand. There's no inscription, but anyone living in the 1770s would have understood the reference - it was one of the best-known moral aphorisms of the eighteenth century. Popularized by Alexander Pope in his Epistles to Several Persons (1732), the complete phrase, “ Tis education forms the common mind / Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined,” expresses the idea that character is shaped early in life.
The black enamel band tells us the ring was made to memorialize Tho[ma]s Gilbert
Ob 25 July 1776 AE 70. (Note the date - a Revolutionary moment for America!) He is believed to an English mason and architect from Portland, Dorset, remembered as the builder of St. George’s Church, one of the finest provincial Palladian churches of the Georgian period.
https://grokipedia.com/page/thomas_gilbert_architect
Just as the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined, a proverbial
early 18th century saying meaning that early influences have a permanent effect. There is a related comment of the mid 16th century, ‘a man may bend a wand while it is green and make it straight though it be never so crooked,’ but the current form comes originally from Alexander Pope's Epistles to Several Persons (1732): ‘'Tis education forms the common mind, Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined.’
MATERIALS: 18k gold, rock crystal, sepia miniature on velum or ivory
AGE: dated 1776
CONDITION: Very good - minor losses to the enamel
SIZE: 9, cannot be resized; 3/4" x 5/8" head, 1/16" shank