The American sculptor Alexander Calder (1898-1976) was born in Pennsylvania into a family of locally prominent sculptors, and trained initially in engineering. He is best known for his invention of the mobile, a term devised by Marcel Duchamp in response to Calder’s innovative kinetic sculptures in the early 1930s.

By his own account, his first jewellery was made for his sister’s dolls when he was aged 8, out of discarded copper wire. Wire remained an important element in his larger work and his preferred material for jewellery. He worked in both silver and brass, either hammering or twisting the wire to achieve strong, simple forms.

This ring, formed from a single continuous strip of silver, was made by Calder for the American artist Audrey Skaling as her engagement / wedding ring when she married the architect Stamo Papadaki in the mid 1940s. Papadaki had first met Calder in Paris in the 1930s and subsequently the families were close neighbours in rural Connecticut.