This piece is part of the Royal College of Art Visiting Artists Collection. Every year from 1987 to 2006, while David Watkins was Professor of Goldsmithing, Silversmithing, Metalwork and Jewellery at the RCA, he invited four jewellers and silversmiths from outside Britain to give a week-long masterclass. The artists brought diverse skills, aesthetics and approaches. The first call on their time was to interact closely with the students. In addition, although concentrating on their teaching and working in an unfamiliar studio, each artist generously made an object for the RCA's collection. The Royal College of Art Visiting Artists Collection, now transferred to the V&A, is a major document of international contemporary jewellery, a tribute both to the artists and to the vibrancy of the RCA as a teaching institution.

The American silversmith Myra Mimlitsch-Gray trained at Philadelphia College of Art and the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. She is currently Professor of Art in the Metal Program at the State University of New York at New Paltz. This piece relates to a series of work where she transforms formal silverware by exploring its melting and de-flating. She has written 'This conflation of idea, image and craft results in the creation of objects that are amusing and sad, silly and sublime'.