The napkin ring is a bourgeois invention. The first examples were probably plain or embroidered tapes created by the housewife to personalise the family’s napkins between weekly wash-days.

Napkin rings in silver were the result of the growing wealth of the middleclass. Silver napkin rings started in France about 1800 and by 1840 they had spread to most western countries.

A research report about silver in Sweden 1830-1915 (in Swedish, by Björn Hedstrand) quotes statistics from the Swedish assay office illustrating the start of silver napkin rings in Sweden ca. 1840 and a very large number produced and imported from about 1890.

In the 19th century the dinner table was the centre of social events and was the place where the family exhibited its wealth. The quality and quantity of a family’s table silver was a direct measure of its success.

The Russians were no exceptions; what was fashionable in European countries was adopted at once but altered in the Russian way: better, bigger and more expensive.

Russian napkin rings were created in different materials and styles; but mainly in the "classic six" variants: silver, silver/niello, silver/niello (souvenirs from Caucasus), silver/enamel (cloisonné, champlevé, plique á jour), silver/laque and papier-mâché.
Some examples from my collection (1843-1917).

LITERATURE
Napkin Rings by Ole Lachmann, Rudersdal Museums, 2010
Further details about the book are available at http://www.antiquesilverspoons.co.uk/gask1.htm

2nd Artel		13th Artel	22nd Artel

G.A. Andrejev	P. Dmitrijev	I. Khlebnikov

W. Kangin	G. Klingert	I. Kuzmin	M. Maslov

P. Latkovski (Warzaw	under Russian rule)	S. Matveij	N. Pawlov

I. Sazikov	M. Sokolov	I. Sazikov

Fabergé

M. Kilpelejn	A. Lokin	A. Lokin

N. Neumelov		illegible master's	mark

.			.
.	illegible master's mark		.

.			.
.	unknown master		.

Fabergé	W. Agafonof		G. Klingert

S. Schaposchnikov   (cloisonné and champlevé !)	Unknown Master		A.Postnikov

R. Kochin

Vishnijakov Factory