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.

Jewellers of the late 20th century found new ways of drawing out gold's natural beauty. By exploring surface treatments and textures they created an effect very different from the bright metallic glint of polished gold. They restored an elemental simplicity and grandeur to this most enduring of metals.

Giampaolo Babetto explores a modernistic aesthetic in gold. To achieve a distinctive colour and subtle texture he prepares the alloy (the mixture of the metals) according to his personal recipe. He textures the surfaces, by beating and often scratching the gold.

Babetto began studying architecture, but soon discovered a fascination for jewellery making. His bracelet resembles modernist architecture in miniature size, combining his interest in architectural spaces and the rules of Classical proportion.

Babetto’s oeuvre ranges from kinetic, minimalist to architectural, and recently figurative work inspired by Renaissance and Mannerist art.