Iffland-Ring

The Iffland-Ring is a diamond-studded ring with the picture of August Wilhelm Iffland, a prominent German actor, dramatist and theatre director of the late 18th and early 19th century. The holder of the Iffland-Ring is considered to be the "most significant and most worthy actor of the German-speaking theatre", in the opinion of the previous holder who has passed it to him by will.

One exception to this rule came in 1954, when Werner Krauß was not determined by the previous holder Albert Bassermann but by a committee of German-speaking actors. On three occasions Bassermann had chosen a successor, and on each occasion the actor died shortly thereafter. Bassermann considered the ring cursed, and declined to choose a fourth successor. Since his death, the Iffland-Ring has been earmarked as the state property of the Republic of Austria, although the holder of the time disposes of it until his death.

The origins of the ring are shrouded in some mystery. The apocryphal story is that it was indeed worn by August Wilhelm Iffland, but its established history only begins a century later with its supposed fifth holder, Friedrich Haase, who has been suspected of commissioning it for himself and inventing the story.

The current bearer of the Iffland-Ring has been Swiss actor Bruno Ganz since 1996.

The ring has had a female equivalent since 1977, the Alma-Seidler-Ring, named after actress Alma Seidler; she had been considered as a successor by Werner Krauß, the holder of the ring between 1954 and 1959, but by tradition the Iffland-Ring was to be passed to a male actor.

The origins of the ring are shrouded in some mystery and the current Iffland-Ring was most likely the most precious of a set of seven. Of those, only two rings appear to have survived: the current one and a less valuable one which was in the private possession of Wilhelm Burckhardsberg until the 1950s, but which may now be lost, too.

Iffland, a leading actor in his time in Germany, was inspired by the Romanticism, and commissioned the ring, to be carried by the leading German-speaking actor of his time. Iffland's inspiration to have the ring created was most likely the play Nathan the Wise by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing.

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Wikipedia