The curving, sinuous lines of this mermaid who sits clutching her opal mirror show the influence of the Art Nouveau movement on British jewellery design. It was designed and made by Albert Christian Carl Jahn (1865-1947) who was born in Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire, the son of Ludwig Louis Hartmann Adalbert Jahn, a ceramic painter and art director of the Minton China Works.

Albert Jahn won two gold medals in National Competitions as a teenage student at the Hanley School of Art, leading to a scholarship which allowed him to study at the National Art Training Schools (Royal College of Art). He won a travelling scholarship which gave him the opportunity to travel in mainland Europe and be exposed to the wider currents of art. He then became headmaster of the Wolverhampton Municipal School of Art and Crafts, a post which he held until 1905. In 1905, he moved to Sheffield where he became the principal of the Sheffield School of Art, one of the group of schools set up in industrial areas under the direction of the Department of Science and Art to provide artistic training for designers in industry. He died at his home in Dulwich, London on March 10, 1947.

This ring is part of a group of 7 art jewels by Jahn which were bequeathed to the museum by his wife Eliza Maria Jahn who died just a few months after him on 21 November 1947.