In 2013 the V&A commissioned Miriam Hanid to commemorate the work of Christiaen van Vianen, the 17th century Dutch master silversmith who worked for Charles I. Van Vianen’s Dolphin Basin, displayed in the British Galleries, provided Hanid with a starting point to create a companion piece that celebrates the sculptural qualities of Van Vianen’s work. Hanid used flat chasing, the repeated hammering of sheet metal with small blunt tools, to create the watery surface of the centrepiece. The fluid nature of this interpretation is also a reference to the transitory nature of silver, often melted down to be refashioned in a new style or converted into bullion to offset debts. Miriam Hanid is an internationally recognised silversmith, specialising in chasing, forming and engraving, and her work is in many public collections including the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, Eton College, New College Oxford, The Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Museum of Wales.