The seal of approval

Princeton collector wins thanks of the British Museum

By: Christian Kirkpatrick
   John H. Rassweiler has been making a mark in art history.
   After nearly a decade of providing financial assistance to London’s British Museum with its collection of medieval seals, Mr. Rassweiler is currently sponsoring an exhibition drawn from it.
   "Good Impressions: Image and Authority in Medieval Seals," on display until May 20, features 80 items from the museum’s collection and two from Mr. Rassweiler’s. Both beautiful and informative, these objects say much about artistic, commercial and political life during the Middle Ages.
   In a recent interview, the Princeton resident explained the importance of seals by unfolding a 16th-century vellum document, which had been slit in its bottom margin. A thin strip of vellum, like a tail, had been pulled through this opening, its ends fastened with a blob of red wax that was impressed with a design.
   This bit of wax is a seal. The object that created it — though also commonly called a seal — is more accurately termed a seal-die or a matrix.
   Crude matrices were made by blacksmiths who hammered simple designs into a small piece of inexpensive metal. Finer, truly artistic ones were fashioned by jewelers who essentially carved cameos in reverse, creating in pieces of ivory, jet or precious metals hollowed areas that could create complex images in melted wax.
   Used throughout Europe, the East and Middle East for many, many centuries, seals were essential in Europe during the Middle Ages. "You had to have seals to authenticate documents," explained Mr. Rassweiler. Signatures didn’t work because few people could read.
   Because seals were customarily used in financial transactions, almost everyone who owned property also owned a unique matrix. Matrices were passed from fathers to sons, often with small modification. Even peasants and some women used them.
   In the 19th century, important museums acquired most of the ornate medieval seals and matrices formerly owned by kings, aristocrats and prelates. But simpler examples are constantly being discovered, frequently by people using metal detectors. Most of the matrices in Mr. Rassweiler’s collection of about 200 were once lost.
   Mr. Rassweiler and his late wife, Anne, began collecting seals in 1995, quickly narrowing their search to items from medieval Northern Europe. A few years later they consulted the British Museum’s medieval curator about their activities. He suggested they look over a list of items from the museum’s seal collection and choose some to examine. After they picked 25 items, a museum employee went deep into the bowels of the museum’s storage rooms to retrieve them.
   Only 15 could be found.
   Clearly the collection was in disarray. Mr. and Mrs. Rassweiler offered to underwrite efforts to organize and display it.
   This assistance is yielding results. Recently, the nearly 2,000 objects in the seal collection were photographed, and their images will soon be available on the Internet. Space has been promised in the museum’s medieval galleries for a permanent display of seals. The current exhibit has been organized, and it includes a new item purchased through a gift from Mr. Rassweiler. It is a red jasper intaglio depicting the Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius (AD 86-161). Such images were prized by those who could afford them and were sometimes incorporated into their matrices.
   The museum also held an international conference in February for students and collectors of seals and matrices. Attendees shared observations and plans for future meetings. In the past, people in this field were rather isolated. Conferences like this, and an online chat room that Mr. Rassweiler is developing, are bringing them together.
   But Mr. Rassweiler isn’t just spreading information about seals. He’s also hoping to change the way they are viewed by museums and academics. "We’re trying to get people to look at seals as part of medieval art history," said Mr. Rassweiler. "They can tell us a great deal about how people lived, as much as painting or sculpture does."
   He enjoys the glimpse they offer into the past and into the lives of the people they represent. "Who were they?" he likes to ask himself. "What was life like in their time?"
   Seals provide many clues. Indeed, they can be a kind of shorthand for how their owners saw themselves or their offices. Particularly in finely wrought seals, the pose that the owner adopted or the images that surround him or her (e.g., buildings, saints, plants and animals) all had connotations that were well understood.
   Some seals, however, are amusingly literal. For example, the seal of Oxford does not display the buildings of a great university city, but simply an ox fording a stream.
   Others carry little or no symbolic weight. Merchant seals, for example, contained very complex images that were usually made up of random lines. Although these seals weren’t representational, they were essential to commerce because they identified which items, particularly on mercantile ships, belonged to which merchants. Mr. Rassweiler particularly enjoys collecting merchant matrices.
   Beyond their function, some matrices produced seals of great beauty. These are true works of art, asserted Mr. Rassweiler, as he pointed to a matrix and seal of an exquisitely carved woman holding a dove (representing dominance or love) and a small dog (portraying fidelity) at her feet.
   He also showed a replica of the silver matrix and seal of Robert Fitzwalter, one of the barons responsible for the Magna Carta. Given to Mr. Rassweiler by the British Museum in appreciation for all he has done, this seal includes a particularly complex depiction of Fitzwalter on horseback, slaying a dragon.
   Mr. Rassweiler, who has clearly enjoyed his association with the museum, shared this enthusiasm at the opening of "Good Impressions" by throwing a dinner party at the Ritz Hotel for about 50. Guests included museum curators, seal specialists, friends and family members. Princeton residents Letitia and Charles Ufford, Ann and John McGoldrick, Claire and David Jacobus, Alison Lahnston, Sir John Thomson, Rosemary O’Brian, Nancy Robins and Toby Goodyear all attended.
   Mr. Rassweiler, who holds a doctorate in chemistry, worked for American Cyanamid and Johnson & Johnson. Then, he ran his own company for 12 years before retiring. He currently sits on the boards of the Friends of the Institute of Advanced Study, the Friends of the Princeton University Art Museum, the Friends of the Princeton University Library, the Foundation of the Princeton Public Library, the D&R Greenway Land Trust, and the Princeton Singers.