Alexander the Great Rings

The Alexander the Great Rings collection honours the conqueror after whom the house itself is named. By the age of thirty-two, Alexander III of Macedon had ruled an empire stretching from Greece to the Indus — the largest the world had then known. He founded more than twenty cities, redrew the map of the ancient world, and died at thirty-three with no clear successor. His face, struck onto coinage from Egypt to Bactria, became the most reproduced portrait in antiquity.

Alexandria's interpretation draws on the Hellenic tradition of the hardstone cameo — a portrait carved by hand, in relief, from natural stone such as agate, sardonyx, or onyx. This technique reached its height in the Greek and Roman worlds, when cameos of rulers were carried as personal seals and worn as rings of office. The craftsmanship demands months of patient work; a single error in the carving cannot be reversed.

The hero piece, simply titled Alexander the Great, is set in 18ct gold and crowned with a hand-carved hardstone cameo of the conqueror in profile. Forty-eight pavé-set natural gemstones surround the cameo, framing the portrait in a halo of light. The piece is available exclusively by private appointment, in keeping with the tradition of cameo commissions historically reserved for sovereigns and the imperial families of Europe.

Every ring is hallmarked at The Goldsmiths' Company Assay Office in London — the same hallmarking authority that has stamped the gold of England since 1300. The metalwork is hand-engraved; the cameo is hand-carved; the setting is built around the stone, not the other way around. Each piece is made to order over a longer timeframe than Alexandria's standard collections, given the complexity of the cameo work.